Starting Kids Off Right With Universal Preschool
Starting Kids Off Right With Universal Preschool
by Alberto Torrico, candidate for California Attorney General
Click here to read the article on California Progress Report
Fifty-six years ago, Oliver Brown took the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas all the way to the Supreme Court so his daughter Linda wouldn’t have to walk a mile to her segregated school. Against all odds, and forging a new American era, Mr. Brown and his daughter emerged victorious. This landmark case set the precedent that separate is inherently unequal and that all children deserve access to the same, quality education.
Today, we face a new type of “separate but unequal.” A recent study showed that only 53 percent of low-income children attend preschool, while 80 percent of children whose families make more than $100,000 get the vital head start preschool provides.
Evidence has shown that children who attend preschool get a better start in life, become better students in school and are much less likely to be incarcerated for criminal behavior as adults.
The link between early learning and criminal behavior late in life is so established that some states even go so far as to use 3rd grade reading scores to predict future inmate populations.
Since we are nearly bankrupting our state with prison costs, it is both just and just plain common sense to spend a small amount of money early in a child’s life rather than so much money to incarcerate more and more Californians.
That’s why I have authored and introduced into the California Legislature Assembly Bill 2252 – Universal Access to Preschool. AB 2252 ensures that all children in California will have access to quality preschool programs.
Right now in California there are well over 300,000 eligible children from low-income families without access to quality preschool care. AB 2252 requires the Legislature to continuously appropriate enough funding sufficient to enroll all three-and four-year-old children of families who meet the eligibility requirements and who want to attend preschool.
As parents and citizens, we have a duty to educate our children and see them reach their full potential. This starts in preschool and extends through college. That’s why I am also the proud sponsor of AB 656 – Fair Share for Fair Tuition – to raise more than $2 billion a year for higher education through a 12.5% oil severance fee. California is the only major oil producing state without such a fee.
The shocking truth is that California is now spending more on prisons than on higher education. It costs more to send an inmate to prison than it does to send a student to Harvard.
We cannot sustain the true promise of California until we reverse this trend. My parents were both immigrants who came to California because of the promise of an excellent education for their children. They worked as janitors to provide my siblings and me a chance at a better life. It is because of them, and because of cases like Brown, that I was able to go to college, onto law school and ultimately to the California State Assembly. The value of an education, especially preschool and early education, is truly immeasurable.
We have come a long way in the more than half-century since Brown, but there is still more to do. Until all students have equal accessibility to the best education possible, starting with preschool, we have yet to meet our obligation to give our children a better life than we had. AB 2252 is a first step towards fulfilling that responsibility. Please join me and sign the AB 2252 petition.
