{"id":164951,"date":"2026-03-16T13:33:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/164951\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:33:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:33:44","slug":"mamdanis-city-run-preschool-expansion-will-leave-parents-with-no-other-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/164951\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani\u2019s city-run preschool expansion will leave parents with no other choice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s drive to expand \u201cfree\u201d (city-run, taxpayer-funded) preschool programs is already squeezing private-sector providers, suggesting this \u201ctransformation\u201d is more about a government takeover of the sector than anything else.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the private Manhattan day care <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/12\/us-news\/private-nyc-preschool-to-hike-tuition-by-20-blaming-destabilizing-free-pre-k-expansion\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">preparing to hike prices<\/a> 20% to cover higher costs for qualified workers, as city pre-K competitors push up wages.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38793495\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/crop-38768770_3c4a59.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-38793495\"  \/>The Manhattan Schoolhouse tuition increase was announced just weeks before the announcement of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s 2-K for All plan. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe teachers who are working for DOE, their salaries are much higher, so we are competing with them,\u201d Manhattan Schoolhouse co-founder and CEO Kamila Faruki told The Post.<\/p>\n<p>Yes: Public school teachers are paid much more (starting salaries: $68,900 vs. $50,000) than private-sector ones, plus with less quality control.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the United Federation of Teachers insists these 2K \u201cinstructors\u201d get union wages and benefits; expect job protections like the ones that make even abusive K-12 \u201ceducators\u201d so hard to fire, too.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/03\/us-news\/taxpayers-will-fork-over-more-than-36k-per-child-under-nyc-free-2-k-pilot-program\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$73 million 2-Care pilot<\/a>, with just 2,000 seats across the city, is only the start.<\/p>\n<p>But costs for every stage run to more than $36,000 per kid \u2014 about $13,000 more than the city average cost for private child care \u2014 with a final budget now projected at $6 billion a year.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019ll likely wind up even higher, once the expansion pushes private and nonprofit operators out of the preschool market entirely, so that the city program has to care for even more tots.<\/p>\n<p>Except for the very wealthy, parents who need day care will have to accept whatever the city offers \u2014 or move away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s drive to expand \u201cfree\u201d (city-run, taxpayer-funded) preschool programs is already squeezing private-sector providers, suggesting this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[6602,4337,304,75,84,83,9,24,63,299,51259,82],"class_list":["post-164951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-charter-schools","tag-department-of-education","tag-editorial","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-opinion","tag-preschools","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}