Advancement Project Commends Legislative Leaders and Women's Caucus on Groundbreaking Budget Deal to Support Children and Families in Early Learning, K-12 and Family Strengthening

For Immediate Release
June 16, 2016
Contact: Karla Pleitéz Howell
(213)406-9149
KHowell@advanceproj.org

Advancement Project Commends Legislative Leaders and Women’s Caucus on Groundbreaking Budget Deal to Support Children and Families in Early Learning, K-12 and Family Strengthening

On Wednesday, June 15, 2016, the Assembly and Senate approved an important budget deal to support significant multi-year investments in early learning, K-12 and families in need.

As Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) stated:

“Today, we fight poverty and make history by eliminating the Maximum Family Grant.  And we make other key human service and health care improvements as well.  We improve early childhood education with a package of rate increases and preschool slots that will grow to $500 million and will continue to grow after the minimum wage is implemented.”  http://www.asmdc.org/audio/20160615BudgetFloorRemarksRendon.mp3

“We thank our elected leaders and community allies for recognizing that both our youngest children and our school age children alike need multi-year, large scale investments, and we look forward to working with the Legislature and Governor to continue this system-building work in the coming years,” stated Advancement Project Executive Director, John Kim. “We celebrate today’s budget, and we are dedicated to the road ahead to ensure that our kids, particularly those in low-income communities of color, have the resources they need to thrive and learn.”

In alignment with the priorities of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, Senate pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) and budget conference committee members reached a budget agreement for early learning that includes much-needed investments that are expected to total half a billion dollars in new funding over the next few years. These multi-year investments include supporting fairer wages by raising the Standard Reimbursement Rate and Regional Market Rate, with additional intent language to continue raising wages for the ECE workforce in light of the new minimum wage law.

The early learning package also sets out a three-year phased plan to expand full-day preschool to almost 9,000 low income young children who currently lack access to learning opportunities.

“These multi-year investments represent a departure from one-year, standalone investments and signal the Legislature’s willingness to plan and build an early learning system that supports increasing numbers of young children in high quality settings,” commented Karla Pleitez Howell, Director of Educational Equity at Advancement Project.

The budget deal also preserves transitional kindergarten funding and protects the many thousands of children and families who are counting on early learning opportunities in their local school districts through Transitional Kindergarten and Expanded Transitional Kindergarten for this next school year.

“This budget frankly follows the famous wisdom from Frederick Douglass who told us over a century ago that it’s easier to build a strong child than to fix broken men and women,” said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), chair of the Assembly Subcommittee 2 on Education Finance.

For growing families, the budget deal also includes important provisions to better support California’s babies born into poverty. The budget deal abolishes the Maximum Family Grant (MFG), which withheld additional benefits to poor families who had new babies while receiving public assistance. Estimates suggest that this law unnecessarily harms approximately 130,000 children in 95,000 families across California with its child-facing penalties and Advancement Project thanks Senator Holly Mitchell and other forward thinking legislators for leading this charge.

For K-12, the proposed budget deal reflects continued generosity in its accelerated implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), providing $2.94 billion in funding for LCFF and bringing the total LCFF funding to $55.8 billion in 2016-17.  The budget deal also proposes $200 million for the K-12 College Readiness Block Grant for LEAs to better prepare low-income, English learner, and foster students for college eligibility and admission, as well as $35 million for the Teacher Workforce Package to address the teacher shortage.

“California’s values are most clearly stated in the dollars and cents of its budget. We commend Speaker Rendon, Senate pro Tem De Leon, and the Women’s Caucus for honoring the promise of California’s next generation and aligning our tax dollars and our values,” stated Kim Pattillo Brownson, Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy at Advancement Project. “From babies born in poor families facing the Maximum Family Grant, to young children struggling to find early learning opportunities, to older children in K-12 seeking a fair chance to prepare for the world of college or work — our legislative champions have prioritized significant multi-year investments that signal their commitment to build the system our children need and deserve.”

Advancement Project is a next generation, multiracial civil rights organization. In California we champion the struggle for greater equity and opportunity for all, fostering upward mobility in communities most impacted by economic and racial injustice. We build alliances and trust, use data-driven policy solutions, create innovative tools, and work alongside communities to ignite social transformation!
For more information, visit www.AdvancementProjectCA.org.