L.A. Preschool Plan Draws Attention
A recently approved plan has allocated $100 million over the next five years to make preschool more widely accessible to young children in Los Angeles County. This plan is being hailed as a national model, and experts believe it signifies a growing support for publicly funded preschool programs in other metropolitan areas.
The nine-member Los Angeles Proposition 10 Commission, responsible for deciding how state tobacco-tax revenues collected in the county are spent, voted unanimously to approve the allocation last month. The commission is now in a planning period of six to twelve months to determine the specifics of the plan.
Rob Reiner, the actor and filmmaker who led the campaign for the tobacco-tax measure in 1998, expressed his excitement about the approval and called it a historic day for children not only in L.A. County but also for the entire country. The initial plan is to use the funds to assist existing preschool services, such as Head Start and California’s state preschool program, in enrolling more eligible children from low-income families who are currently not being served. Additionally, the money will be used to expand services provided by nonprofit organizations and ensure that families in need have access to full-day preschool services.
While the immediate focus of the plan is on eligible children who qualify for subsidized services, the long-term goal of the commission is to provide early care and education services to all children in Los Angeles County aged 0 to 5. With 81 different school districts in the county, local officials estimate that approximately 100,000 3 and 4-year-olds are currently not receiving preschool services.
Anne Mitchell, an early-education consultant and expert on prekindergarten programs, says that it appears more cities are taking matters into their own hands and implementing similar initiatives. For example, residents in Miami-Dade County, Florida, will soon vote on a new property tax to finance programs for children, and Houston is working on a plan to expand preschool programs throughout the region.
Although the Houston project has not yet identified a specific source of funding, the focus is on maximizing current resources and helping existing preschool providers access available funds. Special committees are also working on determining the number of preschool-age children in need of services in the Houston area, reviewing child-development research, and finding ways to involve child-care providers, Head Start centers, and local school districts.
Rob Reiner’s lobbying efforts have paid off, and his vision for accessible preschool services is now becoming a reality.
Lingering Concerns
However, some providers of family child-care and faith-based services are still skeptical about the new initiative and the efforts to improve wages, as they are unsure if they will be included in these plans. Joanne Shalhoub-Mejia, the president of the Hispanic Providers Association in the county, expressed the need for inclusion and broad support with adequate funding in a press release. While the leaders of the 737,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District will not be in charge of the new preschool classes, they have expressed strong support and have allocated $80 million specifically for early childhood education facilities in the school bond on the Nov. 5 ballot. Caprice Young, the president of the city’s school board, emphasized the goal of closing the achievement gap in Los Angeles and ensuring that there is no educational gap at the beginning.
The Long-Term Goal
As Los Angeles County progresses with its initiative, experts in early childhood policy stress the importance of establishing a sustainable system that can withstand any changes to the cigarette tax of 50 cents per pack, which generates approximately $650 million annually across the state. Karen Hill-Scott, a member of the statewide commission, hopes that the initiative will not merely distribute money without creating a comprehensive system. Additionally, there is a concern about attracting Latino and Asian-American families to the programs, and it is necessary for the Los Angeles Proposition 10 commissioners to address this issue. There is a worry that building more centers will not be enough if parents do not participate. It is also essential to transform the early childhood workforce to reflect the diversity of the community, as it currently consists mainly of white and African-American women, according to Mr. Fuller.
