Mayoral candidate Ray McGuire pitched an ambitious plan to expand New York City’s pre-kindergarten programs to cover toddlers as part of his push to overhaul and improve the public school system — and help fuel the Big Apple’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m doing 0-K. We know from the assessment that we talked about that we have to get our kids early,” said McGuire.

“I want the same thing that those who have the resources have for their children — I want the same for all children of New York City,” McGuire said, noting the ability of wealthier parents to pay for preschool for toddlers.

“Every parent looking at their child at zero and making sure their child is healthy and has the capacity. Every single parent,” he added.

The former financier also listed the struggles at public schools in the city’s poorer and working-class neighborhoods as one of the biggest crises facing the city as it comes back from more than 32,000 deaths due to the pandemic, a year of COVID lockdowns and the consequent economic downturn.

“This is a city that I love, that I love, that I now see facing the crisis of COVID, the crisis of the economy, the crisis of what’s taking place in safety and justice in the streets and the crisis of education,” McGuire told The Post during a nearly 90-minute sit down with the paper’s Editorial Board.

McGuire’s not alone among the candidates in the June 22 Democratic mayoral primary in calling for further expansion of the city’s early education and social services programs, which are now seating some children as young as age 3.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has made calls for a similar program a central facet of his campaign, while Maya Wiley – a former top adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio – has called for a dramatic expansion in childcare for working class families.

During the wide-ranging interview, the former Citibank executive called on de Blasio to order the schools fully reopened — pointing to the expected toll that a year lost from classrooms has had on minority students.

However, he had few answers when pressed on how he would talk the head of the powerful teachers’ union, Michael Mulgrew, into going along with his plan.

“I don’t know what’s going to convince Michael Mulgrew, but I’m looking at the facts now of a failed system,” he said. “I can have no more outrage than I’m looking at a system where I take 10 Black and brown kids and two, maybe three can read. That’s the system I’m looking at.”

McGuire also called for changes to the controversial city policies and state laws governing admittance to specialized high schools and the Gifted & Talented programs.

“There is not one great institutional organization in the world that relies on one test — not one,” he said, pointing to the admissions criteria used by top-flight universities like Harvard and Yale.

“Specialized [high schools] — you can keep the test,” he added, referring to the SHSAT, “but give me more criteria.”

But when pressed on what he specifically would change, McGuire again demurred and said he would commission a panel of experts to study the issue and recommend reforms.

McGuire — a newcomer to municipal politics — also took a bevy of questions on city crime and the surge in shootings plaguing many neighborhoods, particularly in Brooklyn and The Bronx.

He said that he would push state lawmakers in Albany to tweak the state’s recent bail reforms to allow officials to detain people repeatedly busted with guns, even if they have not been charged with a violent crime.

“We need to do whatever we can do to get guns off the street,” he said.

He also said that he would create a deputy mayor to oversee the Police Department and other public safety agencies. Traditionally, the NYPD commissioner has reported directly to the mayor and had little day-to-day oversight from City Hall.

McGuire took his sharpening critique of city schools and the broader education system to The Post just days after scoring a key endorsement from Rep. Gregory Meeks, who chairs the Queens County Democratic Party.

It was a big win for McGuire, whose campaign has focused its efforts on appealing to all-important block of middle and working-class Black Democratic primary voters — particularly in southeast Queens.

The 64-year old — who was one of the highest-ranking Black executives to ever work on Wall Street — has also netted high-profile endorsements from other icons in the city’s African-American community, including director Spike Lee and hip-hop superstars Jay-Z, Nas and Diddy.

But even with that high-profile backing and raising $7.4 million for the race, McGuire remains mired in the mid-single digits in recent polls.

“The interesting thing about this is the more people hear me — it was all name recognition, right,” McGuire said about the polling. “I haven’t been running for this all my life.”

And then in a veiled shot at front-runner Andrew Yang and his long-shot 2020 presidential bid, McGuire said: “I didn’t parachute in from the national stage to do this.”