WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is hiking pay for educators in the early childhood program Head Start as part of an effort to retain current employees and attract new ones in the midst of a workforce shortage.

The administration’s new rules, published Friday, will require large operators to put their employees on a path to earn what their counterparts in local school districts make by 2031. Large operators also will have to provide healthcare for their employees. Smaller operators — those that serve fewer than 200 families — are not bound by the same requirements, but will be required to show they are making progress in raising pay.

“We can’t expect to find and hire quality teachers who can make this a career if they’re not going to get a decent wage as much as they might love the kids,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in an interview.

Many operators have been forced to cut the number of children and families they serve because they cannot find enough staff. At one point, the federally funded program enrolled more than a million children and families. Now, programs only have about 650,000 slots. A quarter of Head Start teachers left in 2022, some lured away by higher wages in the retail and food service sector. Some operators have shut down centers.

Head Start teachers, a majority of whom have bachelor’s degrees, earn an average of less than $40,000 a year. Their colleagues who work in support roles — as assistant teachers or classroom aides — make less.

Head Start, created in the 1960s as part of the War on Poverty, serves the nation’s neediest families, offering preschool for children and support for their parents and caregivers. Many of those it serves come from low-income households, are in foster care or are homeless. It also seeks to offer good-paying jobs to parents and community members.

“This rule will not only deliver a fairer wage for thousands of Head Start teachers and staff, it will also strengthen the quality of Head Start for hundreds of thousands of America’s children,” said Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy advisor.

The program has generally enjoyed bipartisan support and this year Congress hiked its funding to provide Head Start employees with a cost-of-living increase.

The requirements, while costly, do not come with additional funding, which has led to fears that operators would have to cut slots in order to make ends meet. That is part of the reason the administration altered the original proposal, exempting smaller operators from many of the requirements.

But the administration has argued that it cannot allow an antipoverty initiative to pay wages that leave staff in financial precarity. Like much of the early childhood workforce, many Head Start employees are women of color.

“For 60 years, the Head Start model has essentially been subsidized by primarily of women of color,” said Katie Hamm, a deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Early Childhood Development. “We can’t ask them to continue doing that.”

The program is administered locally by nonprofits, social service agencies and school districts, which have some autonomy in setting pay scales.

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