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Commentary: Why Newsom must make child care affordable for Californians

San Diego Union-Tribune - 12/12/2019

Gov. Gavin Newsom must decide this month whether California families win big, or still wait, on his signature promise: making child care affordable for all.

Newsom, father of four, made impressive strides in his rookie year: stretching paid family leave by two weeks after a newborn arrives, plus adding thousands of new preschool seats. He must now opt to accelerate progress or retreat to baby steps, urged by some budget advisers who resemble Scrooge rather than Old Saint Nick.

The price of even sketchy child care strains many household budgets. In San Diego County, over 3,100 Navy families can't even find an open slot, forever stuck on waiting lists, detailed at a City Heights forum last month.

Mothers like Katrina Dentino-Reyes pray the governor will take bold action. "It's becoming harder," raising two children under 4, she told me. "I called the local Christian school, thinking they have morals, you know, higher quality," but they charge $1,350 a month, too much for Dentino-Reyes, who earns $2,300 as a classroom aide in Fairfield.

Newsom is a rare leader, building sturdy policy atop hard evidence. He knows how enriching a child's daily settings, at home or pre-K, fosters far more learning than struggling to regain lost ground later in school. But now comes the hard part: crafting durable institutions that parents easily access and propel children higher.

Bipartisan support to buoy families and youngsters has never been stronger. Republican San Diego City Councilman Chris Cate has put child care front and center, urging that new pre-K facilities be folded into city redevelopment. New state dollars could leverage local investment. And with cash reserves projected to reach $26 billion in Sacramento, now is the time to move decisively.

So, how might Newsom move in his new year's budget, spurring collaboration with local leaders?

Simplify family access: Parents confront a mind-numbing labyrinth of programs locally. Scattered incrementalism in Sacramento only worsens the confusion. The downside of Newsom's welcomed expansion of tax credits for low-income workers is how it duplicates existing child tax credits. Another $1 billion in vouchers goes to parents to cover child-care costs each year. Families are stymied in knowing how to juggle these fragmented efforts.

"There are so many guidelines and procedures," Dentino-Reyes said, "It's difficult to know what you need to become eligible." She lost a pre-K slot when her income went $28 over the cutoff. Why not create a single child care and pre-K program, call it Cal Start, then simplify funding streams and provide a single door that parents enter?

Ensure sustained funding: Newsom has banked on modest dollops of one-time funding, hoping to avoid cuts downstream. Yet prudent long-term budgeting could solidify family supports. Longer periods of family leave could be financed by levies on employers and affluent workers who currently pay a lower tax rate than blue-collar laborers.

Newsom could advance universal pre-K by encouraging local schools to serve more children, such as via transitional kindergarten. In San Diego County, districts like Vista Unified and South Bay Union already do this with nonprofit partners, together serving 3- and 4-year-olds. This brings constitutionally sheltered Proposition 98 funding to local schools and hedges against enrollment declines. In turn, nonprofit preschools can serve additional infants and toddlers.

The governor might redress his deletion of pre-K facilities dollars last summer from a $15 billion school bond appearing on the March ballot. Instead, Newsom now prefers to build just 50 classrooms a year, meaning that the state's poor children won't find an open pre-K seat until 2042.

Improve quality: Promised gains in children's learning will be hampered until the quality of care rises. Many pre-K teachers have yet to attain even a two-year college degree, most earn close to minimum wage. A lone teacher must corral two dozen children in the billion-dollar transitional kindergarten program, limiting kids' engagement in rich learning activities.

"It's hard to trust in these facilities," Aurora Claiborne said, raising a 1-year-old while "doing lashes and hair" in the Bay Area. "If the babies are crying, they [teachers] just don't have enough patience, they don't have genuine love for these kids."

Devising a coherent policy blueprint will help as requested by the governor. Two San Diego leaders, Miren Algorri and Robin Layton, will join his state panel. But this analysis should not slow Newsom's momentum.

Meanwhile, Dentino-Reyes still awaits affordable, simple-to-find child care. Asked what the governor should do, she said, "I hope he shows compassion."

Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, is author of "Standardized Childhood."

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