Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

Post-obit the introduction of a bill to aggrandize transitional kindergarten to all four-year-olds in Jan 2014, transitional kindergarten teacher Michelle Cazel-Mayo's classroom at H.W. Harkness Elementary Schoolhouse in Sacramento gets a visit from the media.

Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

Post-obit the introduction of a pecker to expand transitional kindergarten to all 4-twelvemonth-olds in January 2014, transitional kindergarten instructor Michelle Cazel-Mayo'southward classroom at H.West. Harkness Simple School in Sacramento gets a visit from the media.

UPDATE: After "push-dorsum" to this proposal, land Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has taken the idea off the table. Read more details about the latest program for transitional kindergarten and most the teaching budget bargain he hammered out with other Democratic leaders.

Nearly half of California'due south currently eligible 4-year-olds would lose their eligibility to enroll in transitional kindergarten in 2022 if a neb that passed the Senate terminal calendar week gets the governor's approval.

State Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, introduced a much-revised Senate Bill 837 on the flooring of the Senate last calendar week. The bill would expand transitional kindergarten, a program for children who turn v in the first few months of the schoolhouse year, but non equally much as he'd proposed earlier this year.

Steinberg originally proposed expanding the program to all 4-year-olds, adding a full year of schooling for all children before they enter kindergarten. The latest version of the nib would aggrandize transitional kindergarten only to low-income 4-year-olds. That ways children currently slated to kickoff transitional kindergarten in 2022 whose families fall above the low-income threshold would no longer exist eligible to nourish the programme.

"Nosotros have an opportunity this year with a relatively limited amount of public dollars to provide" preschool for 4-year-olds from low-income families, Steinberg told the Senate earlier the beak passed 26-10. "This pared-down version (of the) nib would even so cover one-half of 4-year-olds in California because half are low-income."

Steinberg'south office declined a request for an interview until the articulation meetings between the Assembly and Senate pedagogy budget committees have resulted in a joint early on childhood budget proposal.

The electric current proposed expansion would double the size of the electric current transitional program and some advocates fence information technology'south the best fashion to spend limited funds.

"We have no evidence that (preschool) gives a boost to center class white kids," said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley who studies early on babyhood pedagogy. "A universal programme, yes, could help poor kids. Only essentially we'd (also) be wasting money on (middle grade) kids who don't benefit that much."

Still, many families who don't qualify as low-income have been expecting that their children would be participating in transitional kindergarten under the proposed police force.

"I was…supportive of the universal preschool proposal and would exist…willing to pay more than in taxes to fund universal preschool," Amalia Cunningham, a middle-form mom from El Cerrito, north of Oakland, said by email.

Cunningham's three-year-former daughter would have been eligible to nourish transitional kindergarten in the fall of 2015 nether the current guidelines assuasive children born in the first three months of the school year to enroll. That, Cunningham said, was a prospect she looked forrad to. Nether the revised proposal, even so, her daughter would no longer exist eligible.

"Nosotros practise non income-qualify under the current proposal, and and then my daughter would stay at her electric current private preschool for an actress year, which may or may not exist good training for kindergarten for someone who will turn v in November," Cunningham wrote.

Transitional kindergarten was created in 2010 as part of a bill written by Joe Simitian, and then the Democratic state senator from Palo Alto, to change the historic period requirement for starting kindergarten.

Simitian said two teachers in his commune asked him to author a neb that would crave students to turn v by Sept. 1 of the year they enroll in kindergarten. California was ane of simply four states that had maintained a December. two borderline for turning 5, meaning that a quarter of beginning kindergartners were iv years quondam for the first few months of school. The teachers pointed to research showing that five-twelvemonth-olds were more developmentally ready to handle the bookish demands of kindergarten.

Simitian, who served on the school board in his home district of Palo Alto, on the Assembly Education Upkeep Subcommittee as an assemblyman and on the Senate Education Commission as a senator, said he was easily convinced and wrote the beak, SB 1381.

At first, the nib but changed the age requirement for starting kindergarten; it did not create transitional kindergarten. If implemented every bit originally written, information technology would have meant fewer children would have started kindergarten. The problem with a smaller class of kindergartners, Simitian said, was a very Sacramento i: it would have saved the state $700 million.

"The reason that was a problem," Simitian said, "is that everyone had an opinion about who ought to be the beneficiary of that savings."

Simitian'due south initial proposal was that half the money would go to the California State Preschool programme, which serves some three- and 4-yr-onetime students from low-income families, and the other half would go to reduce the country budget deficit.

Some thought all of the saved money should become to reduce the arrears. Others thought it should all become to the California Land Preschool plan. Just the argument that won, and that Simitian said he notwithstanding thinks was the strongest, was that the coin should become back to the children information technology was intended for, albeit in a slightly different course. Thus was born transitional kindergarten, an actress yr of public school for children born between Sept. 1 and Dec. ii, regardless of income.

Under current law, only students with birthdays in the first three months of the school year are eligible for transitional kindergarten. SB 837 would change that.

Under electric current police, only students with birthdays in the get-go three months of the school twelvemonth are eligible for transitional kindergarten. SB 837 would modify that.

"There were folks out at that place who hoped that transitional kindergarten, having proved its benefit, would and then be 'growable' over fourth dimension," Simitian said. "For me, it wasn't a consideration or a factor."

Past Jan 2014, with about 78,000 children enrolled in transitional kindergarten, growing the program had go Steinberg'due south primary consideration.

Steinberg had co-authored the 2010 transitional kindergarten bill with Simitian. He decided the national momentum backside expanding early educational activity programs spurred by President Barack Obama's championing of the result made 2022 the right year to shoot for a massive expansion in California.

Steinberg introduced SB 837 in early January, calling information technology his summit priority for his final year in office before he terms out at the end of 2014. Though spending more on early babyhood education has not been a priority of Gov. Jerry Brown, Steinberg has expressed confidence that the governor can be convinced.

For i thing, public opinion in the country has been notably pro-preschool. A Field Poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted in partnership with EdSource in April found that 79 percent of respondents thought it was somewhat or very important to expand the availability of preschool to four-year-olds. The aforementioned poll found that 51 percent of registered voters thought preschool should be fabricated bachelor, without charge, to all 4-year-olds. Xxx-eight pct of voters thought complimentary preschool should only exist fabricated available to children in low-income families.

A more recent poll of i,000 Bay Area residents conducted by EMC Inquiry in partnership with the Bay Area Council constitute that 69 percent of respondents either somewhat or strongly supported increasing state and local funding for early babyhood development and preschool programs.

Whether or not the stiff public support for preschool sways Brown, it could be the lever that brings universal public preschool to all California four-year-olds, said UC Berkeley's Fuller.

"Over time, ideally these programs volition (expand to) meet heart class households," Fuller said.

The new version of Steinberg'southward transitional kindergarten bill contains language that would allow private districts to offer transitional kindergarten to a broader population, but the Senate budget proposal does not provide funding. Instead, it suggests that districts offer transitional kindergarten on a sliding calibration to residents who earn an annual income higher up $44,000 for a family of four – the cutoff for low-income eligibility.

Many Republican senators remain opposed to the measure on the grounds that it costs as well much.

The Senate early on childhood budget proposal would redirect the $900 one thousand thousand currently slated for transitional kindergarten to a plan that would serve all low-income 4-year-olds. The total proposal – including more money for the existing state preschool program, a college value for kid care vouchers and an increased reimbursement rate for centers caring for low-income students – would toll an boosted $378 1000000 in 2014-xv. That number is probable to change once lawmakers hammer out a budget bargain that integrates early on education proposals from both houses.

Any the final amount ends upwards existence, Steinberg may exist betting it'due south an easier number for the governor to swallow than the additional $one.46 billion information technology would cost in 2019-twenty but to provide transitional kindergarten for all 4-twelvemonth-olds.

"I think it's still a huge advance," said Deborah Kong, executive director of Early Edge California and a vocal proponent of the transitional-kindergarten-for-all proposal.

"He started with a great aspiration," Kong said of Steinberg. "Then he realized information technology had fiscal implications."

Lillian Mongeau covers early on childhood education. Contact her or follow her @lrmongeau .

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