New York’s Dream of Universal Preschool Is Dying
Providers aren’t getting paid, and the mayor’s priorities lie elsewhere.
New York Mayor Eric Adams.
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One of America’s most ambitious child-care experiments is playing out, in part, at a public-housing complex at the far end of Manhattan’s East Village. Tucked behind one of the 13 brick towers that make up the Jacob Riis Houses, a few bright classrooms sit filled with tiny furniture and, one morning in March, dozens of toddlers. This is the Jacob Riis Early Childhood Center, one of roughly 1,200 sites that make up New York City’s free, public pre-kindergarten program, which operates mostly via contracts with mom and pop providers and local nonprofits.