But his chain of preschools offers compensation packages that surprised experts. For an assistant Bezos Academy teacher in Washington state, for example, the bottom of the salary range is about $50,000, with 10 days of paid time off and seven days paid sick time, as well as medical insurance.
“Oftentimes early educators don’t have access to things like retirement or even health insurance,” said Loewenberg, at New America – which means the benefits for Bezos Academy educators are noteworthy.
It's not clear how much is money the preschools have access to. Bezos' 2018 pledge about the schools committed $2 billion to the effort, along with other work to help homeless families, but the nonprofit that supports the programs declined to say how much is allocated for the early childhood work.
Many families make too much money to qualify for federally subsidized child care programs but still struggle to find an affordable option for children. If the Bezos Academy preschools can effectively target those children, the model could have a positive effect on the system.
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There is evidence that that sort of targeting may not be happening to the best effect everywhere.
In Washington state, for example, home to eight Bezos Academy preschools, the model has real potential to bridge access to child care and early education for families who don’t qualify for state-funded programs and can’t afford other high-quality options, said Joel Ryan. Ryan is the executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP, the state’s Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program. But most of the Head Start and ECEAP directors Ryan said he’s spoken to feel that the Bezos Academy preschools compete with them for low-income students instead of targeting those middle-income families.
Competition for low-income students who have other options could also leave more middle-income families unserved, and lead to a decrease in funding at some Head Start and ECEAP centers, which are underenrolled and have room for more students. In addition, while families participating at private Bezos Academy preschools will still be getting an education for their children, they won’t be part of the public systems that offer outreach and social services to parents and families. These can take the form of job, housing and education assistance.
“Bezos Academy is welcome, it's an important player. There’s plenty of need and I think that they can absolutely serve a critical gap,” Ryan said. “But the majority of people who responded to my queries on this have said Bezos operates on an island. They’re not particularly collaborative.”
Ryan said those who work for Head Start and ECEAP programs are interested in partnering with the Bezos Academy preschools to better serve families and target enrollment.
That’s already happening in some areas. Michelle Rahl-Lewis, director of early learning for Tacoma School District in Washington state, said the two private preschools embedded at elementary schools in the system, serving about 100 children, work closely with the district.
“It’s been going great,” she said. “We’ve had lots of great communication about the best way to serve the most families within our community and making sure we’re catching those families that are at that cliff where they don’t quite qualify for Head Start or ECEAP which we offer but don’t make enough money for private Montessori placement.”
Michael Abello, chief education officer at Bezos Academy, said that the network is very thoughtful about where to place new preschools, using data to identify areas where there are not enough seats to serve children in the community.
“If we are entering a community and have an adverse effect on another program, that’s counter to our mission,” he said. “We’ve actually had a really positive reception from families and communities and frankly other early learning providers that we’ve had a chance to collaborate with on that admissions model.”
One goal is to allow families to identify the right program for them and allow them to consider Montessori as an option, Abello said.
“In large part, our work is going to be dependent on partnership, learning from and learning with those leaders in the early learning space,” he said.
The Bezos Academy preschools aim to serve 1,000 children by the end of the year, a relatively small figure considering there are 4 million 4-year-olds in the country alone.
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But Bezos Academy is growing far more modestly than Bezos’ main business: Amazon.
That means other entities have a huge role to fill when it comes to meeting the nation’s early childhood education needs – if policymakers can agree it’s a priority. President Joe Biden’s proposed Build Back Better plan included significant investments in early childhood education, but failed to pass. (The president did sign an executive order in April asking federal agencies to find ways to make child care more affordable and accessible.) That’s left it to states, including California, Colorado and New Mexico, to take on filling the void, Loewenberg said.
“The issue of solving the child care crisis is multifaceted,” said DeHaas, from Dallas College. “There needs to be a multifaceted approach.”
This article was co-published with EdSurge. EdSurge is a nonprofit newsroom that covers education through original journalism and research. Lilah Burke is a freelance reporter from New York
