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Lawmakers press PDE on early childhood pay, pre‑K seats and student‑teacher stipends
Summary
Members told PDE that early childhood teachers’ pay and program access are critical; Rowe said the governor’s budget increases per‑seat pre‑K funding to improve pay and proposed doubling student‑teacher stipends from $20M to $40M to expand the program.
Committee members highlighted workforce challenges in early childhood and pre‑K programs, noting that many early childhood educators earn low wages and that staffing shortages threaten program continuity. Representative Siegel and others provided statistics from workforce surveys describing high turnover and low pay among early educators.
Acting Secretary Rowe said the governor’s proposal raises the per‑seat pre‑K count funding to support salaries and reduce attrition, and that guidance would aim to establish pay parity with K–12 district peers where feasible. On the student‑teacher stipend program — an initiative members described as popular and underfunded in its first round — Rowe said the governor proposed increasing the fund from $20 million to $40 million to serve roughly 5,500 student teachers per year at a stipend level of $10,000 per recipient and to expand high‑needs location supplements.
On early intervention and program projections, deputy secretary staff described PDE’s modeling approach: PDE works with early intervention providers to project service counts using prior‑year numbers and provider input as the basis for proposed budget requests.
Members asked PDE to provide metrics on pre‑K seat counts, early intervention projections, student‑teacher stipend application demand and how the department will measure retention improvements tied to higher pay.
