The dust has not yet settled, and we may not know much more until the May revise of the governor’s budget, but as it looks now, checking the numbers, 10% of the state’s budget cuts are carried by childcare programs. However, childcare itself is not 10% of the state’s budget. This seems very unfair.
Of course, this shows a reflection of our state’s values. Clearly, early childhood education is not valued as a public objective. Yet we don’t mind paying for incarceration. The cost of incarcerating criminals far exceeds the cost of teaching preschoolers and getting them ready for schools, giving them a chance at success. In the face of countless studies correlating education levels inversely with prison attendance, this seems like a very shortsighted approach to solving our problems.
There will be more hoods loitering in California inner city neighborhoods in the years to come. There will be more homelessness and poverty in the rural stretches of the central valley.
These are tough times, I agree, but less education, at all levels, is not going to make California more competitive in the decades to come.
