RAND California Preschools Study Urges Focus on Quality in Tight Budget Times

For the past two years, researchers at the RAND Corporation have been mapping the quality and availability of preschools in California, home to the nation’s largest population of preschoolers. Their first three reports, released in 2007 and 2008, revealed an uneven patchwork of preschool services across the state: many 3- and 4- year olds are enrolled in preschools of all types, but the overall quality of these programs is very low, especially in domains related to child development and academic achievement. More distressingly, the children who are mostly likely to benefit from preschools – Hispanic and low-income children – are the least likely to be enrolled.

On Thursday, RAND released its fourth and final report. Its recommendations argue for a more intense focus on quality coupled with structural changes to ensure that scarce resources are used effectively. In light of California’s crippling $20 billion budget deficit, the report starts with several low-cost recommendations:

1. Change eligibility rules for state-funded programs to target those children who need services most.
2. Streamline funding system to ensure equitable distribution of early childhood dollars and reduce the amount of unspent funds.
3. Build a foundation for improving quality, by increasing the frequency of quality inspections (currently they occur once every 5 years) and implementing a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) and a tiered reimbursement system based on program quality levels.
4. Evaluate options to streamline the state’s complicated early childhood system-which currently includes nearly a dozen programs operated by multiple agencies-to make it more efficient than the current system, which includes
5. Use more Title I funding for preschool.
6. Implement a longitudinal data system from pre-k to college.
7. Examine the adequacy and quality of the early childhood workforce in the state and make further recommendations for improvement.

Given California’s disastrous budget shortfalls, it may be hard to see how even the smallest of these recommendations could be adopted. Fortunately many cornerstones are already in place. In September 2008, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed three important bills for early childhood that called for consolidating several early childhood programs into a unified program (beginning in July 2009), created the Early Learning Quality Improvement System Advisory Committee, and called for data from publicly funded early childhood programs to be included in the state’s longitudinal data system.

The challenge, of course, is finding the funds to keep up the momentum. But there is some good news on this front. As the report pointed out, the ARRA (“stimulus”) legislation includes $1.6 billion in extra Title I funding for California. The Obama administration’s budget proposal for FY 2010, if passed, would provide yet more funding for states that use Title I funds for preschool. Here at New America, we have also pointed out how states can use stimulus dollars to launch or improve QRIS.

A larger theme emanating from this report is that California – and the dozens of other states that are facing budget deficits – should focus in the short term on maintaining current levels of access and improving preschool quality. In the long term, when and if resources become available, the state should work towards increased access for three- and four-year olds, starting with the children who need it most. The report also recommends building a more solid early childhood infrastructure that expands the workforce and preschool facilities, as well as promoting a “multi-pronged approach” to quality that includes QRIS and tiered reimbursement.

During a conference call in advance of the report’s release, author Lynn Karoly emphasized that policymakers will need to consider further changes to the K-12 system if they are to maximize and sustain the benefits of high-quality preschool. Reforms to California’s early childhood system have the potential to prompt change in the K-12 system as well-but the state’s leaders will need to move past the current disjointed system of early childhood and K-12 education programs in order to make the promise of pre-k a reality.