California’s Preschool for All Act (Proposition 82): A Policy Analysis

California is home to more than 500,000 4-year-old children. Proposition 82 has been designed to offer those children a publicly funded high-quality preschool education. In brief, Proposition 82 will offer voluntary, high-quality preschool education to all 4-year-olds whose parents wish to enroll them. The initiative seeks to ensure that there is minimal disruption of existing early childhood programs and that parents have choices of programs in various settings including the private sector. It ensures program proximity so that no child has to travel farther to attend preschool than to reach a kindergarten program. During the first four years it would give priority to children living in school districts with the lowest academic performance. We conservatively estimate that over the long-run Proposition 82 would return $2.78 for every dollar California invests in the program.

Our analysis of Proposition 82 finds that it is well planned and will bring higher standards, accountability, and adequate resources to early childhood education. It has the potential to create the nation’s premiere preschool education system. We also find that the universal preschool education program provided by Proposition 82 is likely to significantly improve the educational achievement of California’s children. Because it is to be carefully implemented with adequate supports over a reasonable time period, it is likely to have positive effects on the private sector, particularly those who teach in preschool education programs. Although the program would cost about $2.4 billion per year when fully implemented, our analysis estimates that it would yield far larger economic benefits to California over the long-run due to decreases in school failure and its attendant problems such as high crime and low productivity.