New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer has released a new plan to improve services for children from birth through age 3 in NYC. The plan, NYC Under 3, examines the current state of child care in the city and puts forth a series of policy recommendations to address current issues related to affordability, availability, and quality of child care/early childhood education for children age three and under.

QUALITYstarsNY is mentioned in the plan as part of the discussion around assessing the quality of child care in New York City. As the report notes, QUALITYstarsNY served more than 200 center-based and family child care programs across New York City boroughs as of September 2018.

If adopted, the six year NYC Under 3 plan would be the largest city-level expansion of child care for children birth to age three in the United States—making child care more affordable for NYC’s low and moderate income families with young children.

NYC Under 3 Policy Recommendations

The Comptroller’s plan includes several proposed policies to help improve birth to three early learning opportunities in NYC, including:

  • Lower families’ financial contribution toward child care and expand child care assistance to families that make up to 400 percent of the poverty level.
  • Increase accessibility by offering start up and expansion grants for child care programs to increase infant and toddler enrollment, and create a $500 million fund for construction and renovation of child care facilities.
  • Increase compensation for child care providers serving infants and toddlers and create parity between center-based educators and those in public schools.
  • Expand access to professional development opportunities and technical assistance for providers.

QUALITYstarsNY applauds NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer for making the city’s infants and toddlers, and their families, a priority. We envision the role of QUALITYstarsNY to be integral to the efforts outlined in the report. The efforts will only be successful if we, as a city, can be assured that our youngest children experience the highest quality. QUALITYstarsNY’s focus is on accountability AND excellence, both equally essential for success. We hope the city will adopt these measures to increase affordability, access, and quality of 0-3 child care in all settings.