Governor abandons his promises to preschool parents and providers in his final budget

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget plan arrived last week marked by a surprising and unwelcome twist that would boost childcare costs for already-stretched families and cause preschools to close across the state.

Dodging his earlier promises to ease the skyrocketing expense of raising young children, Newsom aims to slash public funding for childminders and pre-K programs by about 2%, after adjusting for the state’s accelerating inflation. This would undermine thousands of nonprofit preschools, already losing revenues tied to 4-year-olds who have migrated to transitional kindergarten, the new grade offered exclusively in public schools.

In vivid contrast, the governor prefers to lavish public schools with $8.6 billion in new spending, certain to please local educators and teacher unions. But in doing so, Newsom reneges on his earlier promise to add 44,000 new childcare slots for low- and middle-income families. This lopsided support of local schools — financed in part by cutting real spending on early education — would erode the capacity of community pre-Ks to lift young children and ultimately increase downstream taxpayer costs when kids fall behind in elementary school.

Newsom rightfully celebrates progress in extending free preschool, dubbed transitional kindergarten, to 97,000 additional 4-year-olds since 2021. It’s a notable achievement, saving parents upward of $18,000 a year for pricey pre-K. Just under half the state’s 4-year-olds now attend transitional kindergarten, exclusively run by public schools.

But it’s a classic case of unanticipated policy effects: Hundreds of nonprofit preschools — hosted in churches, YWCAs and community centers — have closed after their 4-year-olds shifted to transitional kindergarten. The nonprofit sector includes about 10,700 surviving community-based pre-Ks statewide, half charging tuition, while the remaining portions are financed by the state pre-K program that Newsom seeks to cut, or by federal Head Start dollars.

Nearly 1,200 nonprofit preschools have gone belly-up statewide since 2019, drained of their 4-year-olds and often unable to pivot and invite in younger children, according to our research at UC Berkeley. Los Angeles County alone has lost 11,000 pre-K seats in their nonprofit programs. San Diego’s supply of nonprofit spaces has dropped by half, losing 6,000 child spots since the pandemic. Our study found that even after taking California’s declining child population into account, local areas enjoying stronger TK enrollment suffer from a greater demise of nonprofit pre-Ks.

The sluggish inability of pre-Ks to pivot and serve younger children stems from several factors. Many nonprofits face a bureaucratic maze in Sacramento. They are forced to contract with two separate state agencies; revamping and relicensing facilities for toddlers can take months; properly trained teachers remain scarce; and family demand is soft in neighborhoods where free centers serving 2- and 3-year-olds remain unknown or scarce.

Having fewer nonprofit pre-K providers limits options and raises costs for parents, already desperate in their search for affordable caregivers or preschool. Most children attending TK must be picked up from school by early afternoon, which is impossible for moms and dads laboring full time. In contrast, nonprofit pre-Ks usually run from early morning to evening, and over the summer and during school holidays.

Nearly 1,200 nonprofit preschools have gone belly-up statewide since 2019, drained of their 4-year-olds and often unable to pivot and invite in younger children.

Some lawmakers anticipated the demise of nonprofit preschools as free TK comes to monopolize 4-year-olds. Middle-class families earning up to $120,000 yearly now qualify for publicly financed pre-K when their child turns 2 years of age. But the Newsom administration has done little to alert parents about their new, cost-free options.

What’s hopeful is that Democratic lawmakers — notably budget chairs Caroline Menjivar, D-Burbank, and Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Altadena, — seek to right this lurching ship, hoping to steady nonprofit pre-Ks and expand slots in affordable ways.  

These lawmakers are weighing a $123 million proposal from state schools chief Tony Thurmond to cover enrollment gains in the state preschool program and assist local pre-Ks in shifting to serve children younger than 4, as envisioned under the governor’s own master plan for early education.  

As budget negotiations with Newsom get underway, Menjivar and Pérez propose to move all state pre-K dollars under the Proposition 98 funding guarantee for education, which would shelter nonprofit providers from economic downturns. This would allow reallocating, for instance, just 5% of the $8.6 billion that Newsom awards to schools for financing pre-K, reaching thousands of additional children.  

And, it would cost nothing to require education and social service offices in Sacramento to streamline contracting and licensing of nonprofit pre-Ks that do pivot to younger children. Let’s also shred the mountain of unnecessary forms that parents must complete simply to verify their household income. In recent years, pre-K expansion dollars have gone unspent, as Newsom’s implementing agencies fail to collaborate with local programs eager to serve more families.

Legislative leaders could also spur school districts to convert shuttered campuses, emptied by declining enrollment, to house nonprofit pre-K programs, as school boards in Vallejo and Los Angeles are doing. Long term, it’s crazy for schools and nonprofits to compete for a shrinking count of young children. Instead, inventive agencies, like Kidango in Alum Rock and Options for Learning in West Covina, collaborate with districts to serve toddlers on school campuses, along with hosting after-school programs for TK kids.

Overall, lawmakers must remind Newsom of his earlier passion: Extending affordable preschool to a wider swath of families. He need not stumble on this key issue as the nation debates how to make families affordable and stem the falling birth rate.

Economically stretched parents can ill-afford the governor’s fading memory and Sacramento’s languishing momentum.

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Bruce Fuller is professor emeritus of education policy at UC Berkeley. Lisa Wilkin leads the Child Development Consortium of Los Angeles, a network of nonprofit preschools.

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