Universal Preschool wins the 2020 election
In her November 2020 EdSurge article, Emily Tate discusses the real winner of the 2020 election: Universal Preschool. With the potential for a national policy as well as statewide ballot efforts to fund universal preschool.
With a Joe Biden win, his campaign platform will hopefully come to fruition including funding high-quality universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, improving pay and benefits for early childhood educators, and a stimulus bill that would provide additional funding for the childcare industry.
President-elect Biden’s plans for caregiving, including early childhood and elder care, is detailed and ambitious and reflects a lot of what the early childhood field would say are best practices — Hunt Institute
A potential caveat to providing Universal Preschool is that “Biden’s success in turning his proposal into policy may lie in the outcome of the two Senate runoff races in Georgia in January.” The potential for a Republican-led senate may not lead to “rolling back tax breaks to fund universal preschool”.
The proposal would cost $775 billion over 10 years and would be paid for by rolling back tax breaks on the wealthy.
The EdSurge article also discusses two specific locations that are seeing changes in early childhood education: The State of Colorado and Portland, Oregon.
In Colorado, a tax on nicotine (proposition EE) was recently passed, whose revenue will eventually be directed to fund universal preschool in the state. This bill goes into effect January 1, 2021 and will begin to fund early childhood education directly in 2023.
The nicotine tax will fund at least 10 hours of preschool per week for children who are a year out from starting kindergarten. Once every child is funded for their 10 hours, remaining revenue will go to cover additional hours of preschool for children from low-income families or who have pre-existing risk factors for starting kindergarten behind.
Meanwhile in Portland, a Preschool For All Initiative was passed on the ballot in November, meaning that The initiative will provide 3- and 4-year-olds in Multnomah County, Portland, with access to a high-quality preschool of their choice, tuition-free.
The initiative will also ban suspensions and expulsion for preschool-aged children—a decision that came out of conversation with families of color in the community, as well as from talking directly with teachers and children.
Founded on principles of inclusivity, justice and equity, Preschool for All could not only transform early childhood education locally, but all across the United States — Vega Pederson
Defending the Early Years’ put out guidance in December 2020 to help local educators, state and federal policymakers. You can learn more about DEY’s Guidance for the 2020 Election regarding budgets and policy for early childhood education.