If Hawaii hopes to implement pre-K education for all by 2032, the state must work steadily over the next decade to improve pay, train and recruit enough early childhood educators to staff those classrooms. That’s the takeaway from a new report commissioned by the University of Hawaii-Manoa’s Hawaii Early Childhood Educator Excellence and Equity Project (ECE3).

Hawaii has started to work on this problem, and that’s the good news. The daunting news is that the state has a long way to go before it can meet the directive created by 2020’s Act 46: expanding pre-K programs to include all 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032.

The first hurdle is building or retrofitting enough classrooms to launch pre-K. This year, the state Legislature allocated $200 million to begin — a solid start, though it’s also worrisome that this first tranche of funding was released in a year when Hawaii was awash in cash distributed by the federal government, not only as pandemic relief, but in support of early education and public schools.

Building out preschool classrooms to serve about 20,000 children by 2032 will cost about $2 billion, by 2020 estimates — meaning that the state must allocate $200 million in each of the next 10 years to get it done.

Waver in the funding, and the service will be delayed further. That will not be acceptable, as pre-K access is necessary, and overdue, to ensure Hawaii’s children are ready to learn in an increasingly complex and challenging world.

Once classrooms are available, they must be staffed with trained pre-K teachers — and pay and benefit levels must rise to attract them. The report, researched by the RAND Corp., found 2021’s median hourly wage for an early childhood educator in 2021 was $13.79 per hour. This isn’t competitive with other local jobs requiring similar levels of education or experience, causing educators to leave for higher pay elsewhere.

Next, a state task force will explore nationwide strategies for raising early childhood educators’ wages and benefits, creating pilot programs to do so here. This is where the heavy lifting will come in, as educators, private preschool operators and the state look for a framework to transform the current system.

Will money for subsidies be carved out of the current state pie? Are there other ways to increase revenue? Might federal dollars be allocated for this purpose?

Buckle up. The options are sure to be hotly debated.