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Child Care and Development Programs
California has long been a leader in the nation in recognizing the value of quality child
care and development programs for infants, toddlers, prekindergarten children, and
school-age children. For more than 62 years, the California Department of Education
(CDE) has developed and funded agencies throughout the state so that families can
find safe, healthy, and educationally enriched environments for their children that are
staffed by competent, caring adults. Funding is provided for services to low-income
families, including welfare recipients, in licensed center-based programs; licensed family
child care homes; and license-exempt settings, such as a family’s own home or the
home of a relative or neighbor.
The three major trends that have recently focused public attention on the value of
children’s preschool education are (1) the unprecedented labor force participation of
women with young children, which is creating a pressing demand for child care; (2) an
emerging consensus among professionals and, to an even greater extent, among
parents that young children should be provided with educational experiences; and
(3) the accumulation of convincing evidence from research that young children are more
capable learners than current practices reflect and that good educational experiences in
the preschool years can have a positive impact on later school learning.
In California, preschools, particularly publicly funded ones, have had a long, successful
history. Today, well over half (62 percent) of all California’s young children attend
preschool or Head Start programs prior to kindergarten.
In August 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 172 creating a new
prekindergarten and family literacy program. The new program will be offered to eligible
children the year before kindergarten enrollment. Programs must be located within the
attendance area of elementary schools in deciles 1 to 3, inclusive, based on the 2005
Academic Performance Index. The new prekindergarten and family literacy programs
will provide age- and developmentally appropriate activities for children that are
designed to facilitate their transition to kindergarten and opportunities for parents and
legal guardians to work with their children on interactive literacy activities. The 2006
Budget Act includes funding for the new program as follows: $45 million for
prekindergarten services, $5 million for literacy activities, and $5 million to provide
full-day services. The new program is expected to serve over 12,000 children annually.
The child care and development system administered by the CDE continues to be the
largest, most culturally diverse, and most comprehensive in the nation, with funding at
over $2.3 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2006-2007. The CDE maintains approximately
1,540 service contracts with approximately 788 public and private agencies supporting
and providing services to 510,192 children (state FY 2004-05). Contractors include
school districts, county offices of education, cities, local park and recreation districts,
county welfare departments, other public entities, community-based organizations, and
private agencies.
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