Finger-paints and sandboxes, circle-time and silly songs. Preschool may look idyllic from the outside, but there’s a whole lot of important social and cognitive development work happening in those playful preschool classrooms.
Bringing the benefits of a preschool education to every child in California is the goal of Proposition 82 on the June 6 ballot. To be funded by a tax on the wealthiest Californians, Preschool for All would be an investment in early childhood education that supporters say will save the state money and improve children’s educational performance long after they’ve left their finger-paints behind.
It’s the details of the Preschool for All initiative that some locals are finding troublesome. Almanac reporters talked to local public officials, private preschool directors and public school teachers and administrators about Proposition 82 to get a sense of the initiative’s pros and cons, and to find out how its passage might affect Midpeninsula families.
