Since the District of Columbia established the Pay Equity Fund in 2022, it has faced repeated funding threats almost every year. As a result, advocates sustained a coalition and grew a campaign that mobilized educators, families, providers, and policymakers to keep the pressure on. Their success offers lessons for advocates working to protect policy wins long after legislation passes.
“The coalition stayed ready,” says Adam Barragan-Smith, Director of Public Affairs at Educare DC, an Alliance ally. “We were organizing throughout the year. We were talking to everyone. We were counting nobody out.”
A Workforce at a Breaking Point
Before the Pay Equity Fund was created, Washington, D.C.’s early childhood educators earned significantly less than public school teachers with comparable education and experience. Advocates argued that low compensation contributed to staff turnover, workforce shortages, and challenges with recruiting and retaining educators.
In 2022, after relentless advocacy by the members of the Under 3 DC coalition and their partners, the District launched the Pay Equity Fund to address those challenges. Built on the principle that early childhood educators should be compensated similarly to public school teachers with comparable credentials, the initiative supplements educator salaries based on role and educational attainment while also supporting access to health insurance.
For many educators, the impact was immediate. According to advocates, some teachers received salary increases of up to $20,000 annually. Lead teachers with bachelor’s degrees became eligible for guaranteed minimum salaries that dramatically changed the economics of remaining in the profession.
One educator advocate at Educare DC, for example, told her own story about being both an infant-toddler teacher and the primary caregiver for her mother and grandmother, who are battling cancer. After receiving support through the Pay Equity Fund, she was able to purchase her first car, making it easier to transport family members to medical appointments while continuing to work. Other educators used increased earnings to purchase homes, move to safer neighborhoods, or remain in the District despite rising housing costs.
At the same time, advocates accumulated evidence that the program was working. Independent evaluations found improvements in educator retention, workforce participation, and program capacity. Together, the data and personal stories helped build a strong case for continued investment.
The First Major Threat
Passing the policy turned out to be only the beginning. In 2024, the Pay Equity Fund faced its first major challenge, and it was a big one—the mayor proposed eliminating the program entirely. Advocates mobilized in opposition, and the D.C. Council ultimately restored funding. The victory preserved the program, but it also exposed how vulnerable it remained. The funding levels largely stayed flat even as labor costs rose and participation increased. Advocates worried that if public investment failed to keep pace with reality, policymakers would eventually face difficult decisions about the program’s future.
Those concerns became more concrete in fall 2025. As policymakers looked for ways to contain costs, officials considered eliminating compensation tiers for teachers with bachelor’s degrees. Under the proposal, highly credentialed educators would effectively receive the same compensation level as educators with lower credentials.
Working alongside partners in the Under 3 DC coalition, advocates met with council leadership and argued that the proposal would undermine one of the fund’s central goals: retaining experienced educators. Teachers with bachelor’s degrees were among the most likely to leave early childhood education for higher-paying positions in K-12 schools.
The coalition did not secure a perfect outcome as policymakers ultimately adopted adjustments across the compensation structure. But advocates successfully prevented the elimination of the bachelor’s degree salary band, avoiding what they viewed as a particularly damaging change. Nonetheless it served as a wake-up call, demonstrating the Pay Equity Fund could not be treated as a settled victory. If advocates wanted the policy to survive, they would need to organize for its defense long before the next budget battle began.
Following the fall 2025 fight, coalition members intensified their organizing efforts. Teachers testified at hearings. Parents attended community budget forums. Educators met with elected officials. Providers invited policymakers into classrooms. Advocates strengthened relationships with reporters and worked to keep early childhood issues visible in local news coverage. The goal was not simply to react to future threats. It was to ensure that when another challenge emerged, the coalition would already have the relationships, messengers, and public support needed to respond.
The biggest test yet came in April 2026 when the coalition’s preparation proved critical. The mayor’s FY27 budget proposal once again called for eliminating the Pay Equity Fund.
Advocates were ready.
Teachers testified at hearings. Parents met with elected officials. Coalition members maintained a constant presence at the Wilson Building, meeting regularly with council members and staff. According to Adam Barragan-Smith, coalition representatives were meeting with council offices every week throughout the budget debate.
Advocates also refined their message. Rather than debating the Pay Equity Fund as a budget line item, they focused on what would happen if it disappeared.
Working with Alliance Responsive Support provider Children’s Funding Project, coalition members developed models showing the likely consequences of elimination. Providers could face pressure to raise tuition, reduce services, close classrooms, or cut educator compensation.
The coalition’s warning became increasingly direct: teachers would leave classrooms, child care shortages would worsen, parents would struggle to find care, and the effects would extend beyond early childhood programs to families, employers, and the District’s economy. Rather than framing the debate around funding levels, advocates framed it around consequences.
The Breakthrough
After months of organizing, testimony, coalition meetings, classroom visits, media outreach, and public advocacy, the D.C. Council rejected the proposal to eliminate the Pay Equity Fund. It did more than preserve the program, it approved additional investment.
The achievement was particularly notable because it came during a difficult fiscal environment marked by budget pressures, revenue concerns, and competing demands on public resources. Advocates had spent months arguing that early childhood could not absorb another round of cuts without significant consequences for educators, providers, families, and the broader economy.
The victory represented more than a budget outcome. It demonstrated that advocates had built enough political and public support to protect one of the District’s signature early childhood investments even during a challenging fiscal period.
The coalitions’ success can be credited to a multiapproach strategic campaign. The Alliance was able to provide funding to support long-term advocacy infrastructure. Flexible support was also a big contributor to the Coalition’s success. Through a combination of strategic resources, including policy analysis, communications, community organizing, research, and economic modeling advocates met each moment with the right tool.
Washington, D.C.’s experience offers a reminder that policy passage is sometimes the beginning of the work, not the end. Advocates benefited from organizing before a crisis emerged, recognizing warning signs and taking them seriously. The 2025 debate over salary bands did not eliminate the fund, but it gave advocates time to strengthen relationships, expand their coalition, and prepare for a much larger fight the following year.
Looking Forward
While advocates believe the latest funding victory provides greater stability for the Pay Equity Fund, implementation and long-term funding remain ongoing priorities. The next challenge is ensuring that competitive compensation for early childhood educators becomes a lasting expectation rather than a recurring political debate. Advocates continue working to strengthen public understanding of early childhood education and sustain support for the workforce that makes the system possible.