California will continue to lag behind other states in providing enough child care slots and diverse preschool options for all its nearly 2.5 million children under the age of 5 until it develops a more unified system that provides affordable care and makes it easier for families to enroll.
That is a key recommendation in a recent report published by the Learning Policy Institute. Researchers say California needs to have one state-level agency that will help coordinate the state’s often-confusing array of child care and preschool programs. The new agency should also examine factors that affect the quality of programs, such as low wages for preschool teachers and child care workers and a lack of ongoing professional development for those employees.
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