TKW Consulting

Editorial: Preschool, the day after
Voters want targeted improvements

Published 12:01 am PDT Thursday, June 8, 2006

In their 61 percent to 39 percent drubbing of Proposition 82, voters showed they want to see evidence that something works before they commit huge resources to it. They're also wary -- and weary -- of attempts to dedicate funding to programs through constitutional amendments rather than the legislative budget.

Yet opponents and proponents of the initiative that sought to establish voluntary preschool for all 4-year-olds agreed on two important points that can serve as a basis for future action:

First, access to preschool in California remains unequal. In the highest-earning families, more than 80 percent of children attend preschool. Yet in lower-income and lower-middle-income families, only about half of the children attend. Publicly funded programs have waiting lists. Blue-collar and working-class families find it especially difficult to find affordable preschool.

Eligibility for publicly funded preschool and child care programs hasn't been raised since 2000. That guideline should be fixed, pronto. The current cutoff is $39,000 for a family of four. Annual rent and utilities cost about $18,000; car $4,000; groceries, $8,500; clothing, $5,000. What's left for preschool? Statewide, the average part-time private preschool or child care program costs $4,022.

Second, counties and local First 5 commissions are launching innovative programs that aim at high-quality voluntary preschool for all 4-year-olds. They're beginning their efforts in communities surrounding low-performing elementary schools, mostly in poor communities. Of nine pilot counties, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Mateo are furthest along. The pilot sites are funded mostly from Proposition 10 funds, a 50-cent tax on cigarettes voters approved in 1998. They also mine foundation, local and federal Title I funds.

In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger included $50 million in his revised May budget as part of a three-year plan to offer half-day preschool to 43,000 4-year-olds who live near low-performing schools. The Assembly and Senate zeroed out this funding, but Schwarzenegger is asking them to reconsider after the defeat of Proposition 82. They should do it.

It took three-quarters of a century for Californians to warm up to the idea of kindergarten for all children -- from model kindergartens in the 1870s, to a state constitutional amendment in 1920 allowing state funding, to another constitutional amendment in 1946 mandating state funding for kindergarten.

It shouldn't take California nearly a century to figure out how to get children in working families access to high-quality preschool.