Black teachers: How to recruit them and make them stay
Lessons in higher education: What California can learn
Keeping California public university options open
Superintendents: Well-paid and walking away
The debt to degree connection
College in prison: How earning a degree can lead to a new life
Three proposals put forth today during budget subcommittee meetings in the Assembly and Senate would restore tens of thousands of publicly funded child care slots in the 2014-15 state budget.
The proposals would restore at least 40,000 child care slots for children from low-income families. Proposed costs range from $439.5 million to $650 million. The California Child Care Resource and Referral network has created a chart comparing the three proposals.
More than $1 billion was cut from state-funded child care and preschool programs during the recession, resulting in a loss of 100,000 child care slots. A small portion of that, $55 million, was restored in the 2013-2014 budget.
As part of his proposal to restore funding, State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg also announced that he was changing direction on his signature proposal to offer transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds. Transitional kindergarten is a year of public schooling offered to children who turn 5 in the first few months of the school year. Rather than expand the existing program to include all 4-year-olds by the year 2019-20, Steinberg is now suggesting transitional kindergarten be offered only to children from low-income families. That would still double the number of children eligible for transitional kindergarten annually, Steinberg told the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Education today.
Despite pressure from advocates who say investing in early care results in future savings and Senate leaders who have made early childhood education their top priority, Gov. Jerry Brown has not made any move to restore funding to the state’s early child care and education programs. Announcing his May revision of the 2014-15 budget proposal last week, Brown made no mention of the issue. Nor has the governor made any move to support the proposed expansion of transitional kindergarten.
Lillian Mongeau covers early childhood education. Contact her or follow her @lrmongeau.
Legislation that would remove one of the last tests teachers are required to take to earn a credential in California passed the Senate Education Committee.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
A bill to mandate use of the method will not advance in the Legislature this year in the face of teachers union opposition.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before.
Comments (1)
Comments Policy
We welcome your comments. All comments are moderated for civility, relevance and other considerations. Click here for EdSource's Comments Policy.
Barbara Sena 10 years ago10 years ago
I am so happy to finally see that Steinberg is understanding the need to change the proposed bill for Transitional Kindergarten. I am a Preschool Director of a private program that has been in existence for 50 years and have been discouraged by what the state is proposing for our four-year-old children. I have observed in a T-K classroom and walked away with a sense of defeat. Everything that I have practiced … Read More
I am so happy to finally see that Steinberg is understanding the need to change the proposed bill for Transitional Kindergarten. I am a Preschool Director of a private program that has been in existence for 50 years and have been discouraged by what the state is proposing for our four-year-old children. I have observed in a T-K classroom and walked away with a sense of defeat. Everything that I have practiced in my career in ECE was completely ignored and eliminated from the T-K classroom. I hope that the legislators will talk to those of us who are truly engaged with the 4’s of our state and know what has been working for generations. It is not time to re-invent the preschool education system; it is time to take a seriously look at what we are doing to our young children entering Kindergarten.