They urged legislators to make sure that sweeping cuts to ECE were avoided. In May 2009, California voters defeated the proposal to transfer funds from the California Children and Families Commission Fund (First 5), but the governor’s budget proposal again includes massive cuts of $550 million to this fund.

The message was that we can’t let budget difficulties take us backwards. California’s multi-billion dollar budget deficit threatens many ECE investments. As the state prepares to cut ECE programs, ECE members urged legislators to do everything they can to obtain and use funds, like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Early learning Challenge Grants, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, to partially offset these reductions to preschool education. These budget realities necessitate prioritization of policies that can be implemented with few additional resources:

• Prioritization of eligibility and allocation of publicly-funded preschool slots to those children who can benefit the most;
• Modification of the state’s preschool contract and reimbursement system to increase efficiency;
• Increased regulation and inspection of preschools, and development of a quality rating and incentive system; and
• Improvement of the ECE workforce development system to better prepare preschool teachers to deliver high-quality programming and support ongoing professional development.

Experienced EC educators let the legislators know that when it comes to education, it pays to invest early because effective preschool is one of the smartest ways to improve literacy and school readiness; give kids in low-performing schools a more even start; prepare English language learners for kindergarten; and save K-12 dollars through reduced need for special education and grade retention.

They also reminded the legislators that EC educators are key to boosting preschool quality. Research shows that there is a critical link between the quality of early learning experiences for young children and the job quality of those responsible for their care and education. Investing to ensure that early childhood educators are well-educated, more highly compensated, and have a voice in their workplace will help preschool programs attract and retain a qualified workforce. This will lead to improved care and education for children. Up-front and ongoing teacher training will ensure teachers are able to meet the needs of all of their students. One example: with California’s high rate of preschool-age English language learners, investing to have linguistically competent teachers is essential to overall success. Finally, CFT ECE members informed the legislators that CFT was proud to be an early supporter of SB 1629 and AB 2759, which established the Early Learning Quality Improvement System Advisory Committee. This 13 member Advisory Committee recently released its Interim Report. While the CFT strongly supports and applauds many of the initial recommendations put forth in the report, CFT is also concerned that the committee is slighting several issues that are vital to any quality improvement effort. Of particular concern are compensation, working conditions and workforce development. ECE members asked the legislators to strongly encourage the Advisory Committee to more fully address these issues in their next round of deliberations.