Pre-K Pay Parity: Will Early Childhood Teachers Be Paid Like K-12 Teachers?

Pay parity, in early childhood employment, means a pre-K teacher is paid on the same footing as a K-12 teacher doing comparable work.

The versions documented in this page's research are built from three parts, and a program can adopt one without the others:

• Salary parity — the same salary schedule, or a comparable annual salary. Head Start's 2024 rule defines parity as each teacher receiving "an annual salary that is at least comparable to the annual salary paid to preschool teachers in public school settings," adjusted for qualifications, experience and hours (45 CFR 1302.90(e)).
• Benefits parity — health coverage, paid leave and retirement on school-employee terms. Head Start's 2024 rule pairs its wage requirements with a benefits floor: by August 1, 2028, full-time staff working 30 or more hours a week must be offered health coverage or access to it, plus paid leave and access to low-cost behavioral health services (agencies with 200 or fewer funded slots are exempt).
• Credential-matched pay — your degree or credential sets your rung on the scale, not your setting. Washington, DC's Pay Equity Fund sets minimum salaries by role and credential, and Georgia's pre-K schedule steps by certification level and years of experience.

The gap parity targets is a setting gap inside one occupation.

In May 2025, preschool teachers in elementary and secondary schools earned a median of $27.29 an hour ($56,750 a year); the same occupation in child care services earned $17.72 ($36,850).

Kindergarten teachers earned a $62,680 median against the $38,140 preschool-teacher median — the distance a pre-K teacher crosses at the kindergarten door.

Every parity requirement on this page is attached to a funding stream — a state pre-K program's rules, a city contract, a district pay fund, or the federal Head Start standards — and reaches only the programs or facilities that funding covers.

That is the line this page follows: where the money comes with a scale attached, and where it does not.

These are the publicly funded pre-K programs and pay funds whose rules or guidance set or recommend pay terms in writing — each attached to its own program or participating facilities, not to pre-K in general.

Georgia Pre-K. Georgia pays its lead pre-K teachers on the state's K-12 salary scale: DECAL reports the transition happened in state fiscal year 2025, raising lead pay by 16% and assistant teacher pay by $5,551.

On the FY2027 schedule (July 2026 through June 2027), a lead teacher with an ECE bachelor's (T-1) starts at $41,717 and rises with experience to $56,812 — and to $83,480 for T-7 certification at step L6 (21+ years).

Grandfathered associate-degree leads start at $30,949.86.

The scale reaches private classrooms too: DECAL calculates private providers' lead and assistant pay from the same state salary schedule, prorated in its example on a 190-day calendar (180 instructional days plus 10 planning days) — and the teachers remain employees of the private provider, not of the state.

NC Pre-K. North Carolina pays teachers at public-school NC Pre-K sites on the NC Public School Salary Schedule for certified staff, with State Health Plan and retirement benefits.

Licensed teachers in nonpublic (child care) sites must receive at least the minimum compensation package the program's requirements define.

Check the current package amounts with the state agency that administers NC Pre-K before weighing an offer.

New York City. The city's DOE-funded pre-K contracts set the rates for certified teachers employed by community-based organizations.

A March 5, 2024 Comptroller audit found the contracts funding non-union certified teachers at $61,070 with a bachelor's and $68,652 with a master's — the DOE entry salaries as of 2021 — with no funding for experience steps or later DOE raises.

The audit found 24% of bachelor's-level and 19% of master's-level certified CBO lead teachers paid below even those contract minimums in 2021-22, and 80-90% of experienced certified CBO teachers earning less than their DOE counterparts.

A 2019 agreement between Local 205 and the Day Care Council had promised entry-rate pay parity with DOE by October 1, 2021; the Comptroller concluded it did not deliver actual parity.

Washington, DC. The District's Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund sets pay floors by credential: since FY24, OSSE pays participating child development facilities quarterly, and those facilities must pay minimum salaries set by role and credential.

Earlier rounds paid educators directly — up to $14,000 in FY22 and up to four $3,500 installments in FY23.

The minimums then moved backward: under the Early Childhood Educator Pay Scales Emergency Amendment Act of 2025, passed October 21, 2025, OSSE reduced them effective January 1, 2026, and warned educators their employer may lower their pay accordingly.

From January 1, 2026, the FY26 minimums were $48,736 ($23.43/hour) for a lead teacher with a CDA, $60,678 ($29.17/hour) with an ECE associate or 12 ECE credits, and $71,010 ($34.14/hour) with an ECE bachelor's; an assistant teacher with a CDA had a $48,736 minimum.

FY27 minimums, which apply from October 2026, were not found in our research — confirm the amounts in force with OSSE.

Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts. Pennsylvania stops short of a scale: guidelines revised July 2026 recommend a starting lead-teacher wage of $45,000 per 180-day school year ($33.33 an hour on 7.5-hour days) and encourage salary schedules that move toward parity with local districts.

The recommendation is reviewed in program budgets — it is not a wage mandate.

Head Start is the federal parity attempt — the one mechanism in this guide that runs on a federal rule rather than a state or city funding stream.

The 2024 Head Start Program Performance Standards (45 CFR 1302.90(e)) require programs, by August 1, 2031, to pay each Head Start teacher an annual salary at least comparable to what the local school district pays its public-school preschool teachers, adjusted for qualifications, experience and hours.

The same section sets a salary floor "generally sufficient to cover basic needs" and requires pay that does not differ by the age of the children served.

Benefits come first in the schedule: by August 1, 2028, programs must offer full-time staff — 30 or more hours a week — health coverage or access to it, paid leave, and access to low-cost behavioral health services.

Agencies with 200 or fewer funded slots are exempt.

Whether any of it arrives is now an open rulemaking question.

On May 12, 2026, ACF published a proposed rule, "Restoring Flexibility To Support Head Start Program Access," to remove all the wage and benefit requirements in 45 CFR 1302.90(e) and (f); comments closed June 11, 2026.

A second proposal, published August 7, 2026 ("Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs"), would rescind and replace the entire Performance Standards; comments were due October 6, 2026, and ACF says it will address the wage-and-benefit removal in a separate final rule.

The state of play as of October 2026: the current standards — parity deadline included — remain in effect until a final rule publishes, and a removal would take effect 60 days after that.

Because its deadline sits in 2031, the wage-parity requirement has never yet been in force; whether it ever binds Head Start pay depends on how the rulemaking ends.

Treat the 2031 date as conditional, not as a promise.

Every mechanism above is conditional on funding, and none of them reaches a classroom its funding stream does not pay for.

A licensed child care center running a pre-K room on private tuition has no state pre-K contract, no Head Start grant and no Pay Equity Fund participation — and therefore no school salary schedule behind its pay.

The market numbers show where that leaves the occupation: in May 2025, preschool teachers in child care services earned a median of $17.72 an hour ($36,850 a year), against $27.29 ($56,750) for the same occupation in elementary and secondary schools.

Ownership widens the spread.

Preschool teachers employed by local-government schools earned a $61,300 median in May 2025; those in private elementary and secondary schools earned $44,290; those in child care services, $36,850.

Same occupation, same May 2025 release, three different payrolls.

Funded does not always mean caught up, either.

New York City funds pre-K teachers at community-based organizations on contract, and its own Comptroller found 80-90% of experienced certified CBO teachers earning less than their DOE counterparts.

Washington, DC, built credential-tiered minimum salaries into its Pay Equity Fund and then cut those minimums for January 2026.

Parity, where it exists, is a program condition a legislature or rulemaker can amend.

For a teacher weighing offers, the practical reading is that the title on the posting matters less than the funding stream behind the classroom.

Pre-K teacher at a school district site, at a Georgia Pre-K partner site, at a participating DC facility and at an independent center can describe four different payrolls.

Parity-funded classrooms advertise under program names, not under a parity tag, so the search starts with naming the funding streams:

• State pre-K programs — Georgia Pre-K (its own salary schedule, applied at public and private sites alike), NC Pre-K (the public-school schedule at school sites) and Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts (a recommended starting wage moving toward district parity) all state how pay is set.
• City universal pre-K systems — New York City's DOE contracts set the funded rates for non-union CBO-based certified pre-K teachers; the 2024 Comptroller audit is a public paper trail of how those contract rates compare with district pay.
• DC Pay Equity Fund facilities — OSSE posts the minimum salaries by role and credential; ask a DC facility whether it participates.
• Head Start — the parity rule is still on the books but proposed for repeal, so weigh a Head Start offer on the pay in the offer letter, not on the 2031 date.

Then ask the questions that locate you on a scale.

Which salary schedule does this classroom pay on — the district's, the state pre-K schedule, or the center's own?

Where does my credential place me on it?

In credential-matched systems, the credential is the raise: DC's FY26 minimum for a lead teacher was $48,736 with a CDA and $71,010 with an ECE bachelor's, and Georgia's FY2027 schedule starts a bachelor's lead at $41,717 against $30,949.86 for a grandfathered associate-degree lead.

Benchmark the answers against the occupation data rather than the posting's adjectives: our pre-K teacher salary page lays out the May 2025 BLS medians by state for preschool teachers, the occupation that contains the pre-K teacher title.

For how the role changes by setting — duties, credentials, where pre-K teachers work — start with the pre-K teacher career guide.

Career information, not licensing or legal advice. Salary schedules and program pay terms are set by the agencies that administer them — state pre-K offices, city education departments, OSSE in DC and ACF for Head Start. Confirm the current terms with the agency named before you accept an offer.