Jim Steyer / commentary
May 27, 2014

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Jim Steyer

Now that Gov. Jerry Brown has introduced his revised budget plan, a calendar month-long negotiation over the country's priorities has begun. Unfortunately, the governor'south spending design is still missing a cardinal investment in preschool-age children, even though California continues to sorely lag in preschool enrollment.

Co-ordinate to a recent report by the National Institute for Early Education Research, preschool enrollment in California dropped by virtually 15,000 spots in 2012-2013, dragging down the national average down, despite nearly states making improvements in enrollment.

Buoyed by an fifty-fifty stronger fiscal outlook from the Legislative Annotator'due south Office (LAO), California now has an enormous opportunity to make a smart and reasonable investments in its youngest children by providing funding that would make quality preschool opportunities open to all California families. Political leaders in the Gilt State should have note of what'due south happening effectually the country, and assume a strong leadership role by investing in the state's youngest and most of import citizens.

Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has made new funding for preschool programs a height priority, and Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins is on board. But the governor has yet to commit to providing state funds for a program that volition have a dramatic and positive impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of California children and families.

After years of deficits in Sacramento, the country'due south finances have finally stabilized. California now has the means, and well-nigh chiefly the responsibility, to make wise investments in our future. No other investment could take more do good than investing in loftier-quality preschool programs for four-year-olds before they enter kindergarten.

Our governor has been a strong abet for making policy changes based on audio scientific discipline and research, as we have seen through his strong advancement on the issue of climate change. Now, Brown has an opportunity to do the same with early on childhood pedagogy and preschool. Just as science conspicuously shows that climate change is real, the information is equally clear that children who go to preschool perform better throughout their academic careers and on into their adult lives.

Concluding calendar week, Steinberg scaled down his original proposal, slashing the original cost tag by more than ii-thirds. Steinberg'south program would cost $378 million – less than 0.5 percent of the state's overall upkeep – to brand preschool available to iv-year-olds from low income families. An estimated 234,000 children would do good from the program, according to Steinberg'southward office.

The investment is small, and it is an expenditure the public strongly supports. Solid majorities of California adults (73%), probable voters (63%), and public schoolhouse parents (fourscore%) say the state should provide voluntary preschool for all four-twelvemonth-olds, according to a recent survey past the Public Policy Institute of California.

Put merely, at present is the time to incorporate this scientific knowledge into smart policy, and to respond to the public's will, and virtually importantly, exercise what's all-time for all of California's children and families.

Currently, high-quality preschool programs in California are likewise often out of reach. Only half of all low-income young children have access to preschool of any kind. This system only adds to the growing trend of inequality in our order – a dissever that increasingly breaks along ethnic and racial lines. Increased state investment will assistance level the playing field for hundreds of thousands of young children and their families living in or most poverty – a number that has swelled over the last several years in our country.

Increased investments are required to ensure that all our children have access to early education, and we know that a quality setting makes all the difference to a kid's long-term outcomes. A setting with low teacher-to-child ratios and highly-trained teachers is what makes the difference to a kid's long-term outcomes. Investing in quality is what will let California children to compete with their peers from states that have made these smart investments.

Earlier this twelvemonth, politicians in New York overcame their political disagreements to provide a $300 million down payment on the youngest and nearly vulnerable New Yorkers. California's political leadership should follow conform, do right by our children, and make a wise and prudent investment in high-quality early-babyhood educational activity. The big winners will be all of us.

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Jim Steyer is CEO of Common Sense Media and co-founder of Next Generation.

An earlier version of this piece originally ran in the Orangish County Register.

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