Two bills in the California Legislature would fundamentally change the kindergarten experience to reflect the current heightened attention to the importance of early childhood education.
Children stretch at Los Angeles Universal Preschool.
Credit: LAUP (Los Angeles Universal Preschool)
Children stretch at Los Angeles Universal Preschool.
April 19, 2021
California continues to lag behind other states in preschool access and quality and the pandemic didn’t help matters, according to a national report that ranks all state-funded preschool programs.
Covid-19 plays a pivotal role in the “State of Preschool Yearbook,” an annual report card on state-subsidized early learning released today, published by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), based at Rutgers University. This annual survey focused on the 2019-2020 school year, which was upended by the public health crisis. While researchers say much of the data in this report reflect the preschool landscape before lockdowns began, there is also a special section on the impact the epidemic has had on state-funded preschool enrollment, funding, and quality across the country.
Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget calls for a $500 million investment, a down payment toward the ultimate goal of offering transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds in the state.
Newsom hopes to kick-start more programs for transitional kindergarten, or TK, as it is often called, by offering $250 million in grants to school districts as an incentive to develop and expand these programs. The budget also includes $50 million toward teacher training and $200 million to build facilities for younger children. The K-12 budget “trailer bill,” a 76-page document containing details about the governor’s educational proposals, paints a clearer picture of how these incentives will be rolled out and what issues remain to be addressed.