Narrowing the Achievement Gap

High-quality early childhood education is a critical component of K-12 reform, and research shows it can help close the achievement gap.¹ By increasing access to high-quality early learning programs, the Golden State has a golden opportunity to ensure our children are ready to learn and succeed in school, compete in the global economy and contribute to thriving communities.

• Disadvantaged children, who are more likely to start school behind and stay behind, are also the least likely to attend high-quality preschool programs, according to research by the RAND Corporation.²
• California’s underfunded public preschool programs serve only about 40 percent of eligible 3 and 4 year olds.³ And just 3 percent of infants and toddlers who could attend publicly funded early childhood programs are in them.⁴ 
• Only 13 percent of low-income children are enrolled in high-quality early learning programs that promote school readiness and later school achievement.⁵
• Just 14 percent of Latino children are in high-quality early learning programs that prepare.⁶ Our state’s future depends on ensuring young Latino children, who account for more than half of all children under age 5⁷,  are ready to excel in school.
• Without the strong, early start that high-quality early learning provides, children may not develop the skills they need to read proficiently in third grade. This critical milestone predicts whether a student will graduate from high school.⁸ 

Providing the Building Blocks for Future Achievement

The good news is that we know how to dramatically boost our children’s chances for success. Neuroscientists have found early experiences – particularly from birth to age five – shape whether their brains develop a strong foundation for the learning and behavior that follow.⁹

• Early learning programs help kids develop social skills such as cooperating, making friends and accepting new responsibilities.
• Early childhood education builds important pre-literacy and early math skills and fosters children’s love of learning by encouraging exploration.
• Children in a longitudinal study who had attended preschool were less likely to drop out of high school, be placed in special education and held back a grade, and they scored better on reading and math achievement tests.¹⁰
• The benefits continued into adulthood. By age 18, children not in preschool were 70 percent more likely to commit violent crimes.¹¹ By age 40, study participants who had attended preschool were also more likely to own a home and be employed.¹²

The Economic Case for Investing in Our Future Workforce

Early childhood education is a proven long-term investment that stimulates economic growth and ensures future prosperity. And right now, every dollar put toward early childhood education is both an educational and economic stimulus for American families – creating jobs and enabling parents to earn while their children learn. Economists have found that high-quality early childhood education offers one of the highest returns of any public investment -- more than $7 for every dollar spent.¹³

• It saves government spending on K-12 education, public assistance and the criminal justice system, and increases tax revenues as a result of higher earnings.
• The U.S. is already falling behind other countries¹⁴, and California is also lagging behind other states.¹⁵ In a globally competitive workplace, we can no longer allow our children to enter school unprepared to learn and succeed.
• Early care and education is a major industry in its own right. At a time when job creation is a top priority, it provides tens of thousands of jobs in communities across California.  In Los Angeles, for example, the early care and education industry generates $1.9 billion in gross receipts and creates more than 65,000 full-time equivalent jobs.¹⁶

What’s Ahead: State and Federal Landscape

Continuing budget deficits mean California’s preschool and early education programs are at risk for significant cuts. We must maintain these investments while also maximizing California’s share of new federal early learning investments, doing more and better with existing early learning resources and preparing more children to succeed in school.

• California must build on its progress in making our state competitive for new federal early learning funds, and advocate for including early learning programs within education reform. We have already launched a process to create a statewide Early Learning Quality Rating Scale to raise quality, improve accountability and better prepare children to succeed in school as a result of SB 1629-Steinberg.
• Our state has  also taken steps to reduce bureaucracy, increase local flexibility and use funds more efficiently by consolidating five child development programs into the California State Preschool Program, the nation’s largest publicly funded pre-k program, as a result of AB 2759-Jones. California has also included early learning programs in efforts to develop a statewide education data system, as a result of SB 1298-Simitian.
• California’s children begin kindergarten at a younger age than kids in almost any other state, often before they have the maturity and the social, early literacy and pre-math skills they need to meet the challenges of kindergarten. Early kindergarten, provided by some school districts across the state, provides 4 year olds who have birthdays between September and December and who are currently eligible for kindergarten, with an additional year of preparation before kindergarten. Giving children a year of Early Kindergarten would allow them to mature socially, emotionally, cognitively and physically, and help them develop the skills they need to succeed in school.
• At a time when families are already struggling, cuts to California’s early care and education programs would further weaken the social safety net for our children and undermine the fundamental infrastructure of the state’s early learning system. Furthermore, California must maintain its programs in order to improve the quality of our child development system and compete for millions in current and potential federal funds for early learning.

Join us in preparing our youngest learners to compete in the global economy, fueling long-term economic growth and ushering in a new era of prosperity for our next generation by increasing access to high-quality early childhood education.

1. Karoly, L. and Cannon, J. (2007). Who Is Ahead and Who Is Behind? Gaps in School Readiness and Student Achievement in the Early Grades for California’s Children. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. 
2. Ibid.
3. Karoly, L. (2009). Preschool Adequacy and Efficiency in California: Issues, Policy Options and Recommendations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Page 51. Refers to enrollment in subsidized early care and education programs in California with a child development focus, including Head Start, Title I, state Title 5 programs.
4. California State Office of Education, Child Development Division, June 15, 2006; and 50-State Data (2007). Age groups of children under 6, by income level. New York, NY. Columbia University’s National Center for Children in Poverty; and California Head Start Association (2007).  2006-2007 California Head Start Face Sheet. Sacramento, CA. California Head Start Association
5. Karoly, L. (2009). Preschool Adequacy and Efficiency in California: Issues, Policy Options and Recommendations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.Page 44.
6. Ibid. Page 45.
7. Children Now. (2008). 2008 Report Card, The State of the State’s Children. Oakland, CA: Children Now.  Retrieved November 1, 2008.
8. KIDS COUNT Special Report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2010) Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters. Annie E. Casey Foundation.
9. Harvard University Center on the Developing Child. In Brief: The Science of Early Childhood Development.
10. Reynolds, A. (1995). One Year of Preschool Intervention or Two: Does it Matter? Early Childhood Research Quarterly 10.
and Reynolds, A. et. al. (2002). Age 21 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 24.
Reynolds, A. et. al. (2001). Long-term Effects of an Early Childhood Intervention on Educational Achievement and Juvenile Arrest. Journal of the American Medical Association 285.
Reynolds, A. (1995). One Year of Preschool Intervention or Two: Does it Matter? Early Childhood Research Quarterly 10.
and Reynolds, A. et. al. (2002). Age 21 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers.
11. Reynolds, A. (1995). One Year of Preschool Intervention or Two: Does it Matter? Early Childhood Research Quarterly 10. Reynolds, A. et. al. (2002). Age 21 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 24. Reynolds, A. et. al. (2001). Long-term Effects of an Early Childhood Intervention on Educational Achievement and Juvenile Arrest. Journal of the American Medical Association 285.
12. Schweinhart, L. et. al. (2005). Lifetime Effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40. Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation.
13. Reynolds, A. et. al. (2002). Age 21 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 24. 
14. The U.S. ranks 26 out of 32 countries in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) math scores.
15. On the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) 2005, California ranked in the bottom sixth in eighth grade math, reading and science, compared to other states.
16. Insight Center for Community Economic Development. (2008). The Economic Impact of the Early Care and Education Industry in Los Angeles County.