[img]1987|right|Sebastian Ridley-Thomas||no_popup[/img]State Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City, Crenshaw) wants California to strengthen its commitment to its preschool-age children by providing them with a high quality early childhood education.
He is convinced this helps children prepare for kindergarten, which helps kids have more academic success from first grade through third grade. “Our local schools are struggling to lower their dropout rates and to increase high school graduation rates,” Mr. Ridley-Thomas said.
“We must close our state’s persistent student achievement gap. If we focus on helping children learn what they need to know before kindergarten, we can help them succeed academically and build on their success through 12th grade.
“California needs an early childhood system that benefits for our preschoolers and their parents.
“We need a system that encourages the best preschool teachers to stay on the job. That means granting them better compensation.”
Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s bill to raise reimbursement rates paid to early childhood education providers and increase compensation of preschool teachers (AB 2125) has won approval of the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
If the bill passes, the practical effect of these changes is preschools could earn more per student for providing high quality early childhood education. By extension, credentialed preschool teachers could earn better pay.
At present, highly trained preschool teachers in California earn 50 percent less in base compensation than public school kindergarten teachers with comparable education and training.
Because of their low pay, top preschool teachers often search for better paying jobs in another field. The result is fewer highly trained credentialed preschool teachers educating California’s youngest learners.
Michael Gatto, chair of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, deserves the lion’s share of credit for guiding this important measure through the Appropriations committee, the assemblyman said.
The California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, Child Care Alliance of Los Angeles and California Child Development Administrators Assn., are sponsors of Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s bill.
Mr. MacFarlane may be contacted at fredmacfarlane@mac.com
