Posted on 03/24/2005 8:34:18 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Overcoming an array of political and bureaucratic hurdles, actor-director Rob Reiner will announce today the launch of a tobacco tax-funded preschool program for tens of thousands of 4-year-olds throughout Los Angeles County and the rest of California.
"This is a great day for the children of Los Angeles," said Reiner, chairman of First 5 California. "By launching this effort to provide access to higher-quality preschools for thousands of children, (Los Angeles Universal Preschool) is helping to solve the preschool crisis that exists in this county and state."
Reiner and Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina are expected to join preschoolers today at the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles' Union Pacific Children's Center to mark the launch of the agency charged with making quality preschool universally available for a nominal one-time fee.
"The costs will be lower for all parents," LAUP spokesman Peter Shakow said.
"For instance, if you live in a neighborhood where the median family income is $40,000, we would ask the parents to pay a one-time fee of $300. If there is an LAUP school in their neighborhood, any parent can send their children there.
"It doesn't matter if they make $1 million a year, or $25,000. Even upper-income families will see significant savings," he said.
The universal preschool program, funded by a 50-cent-a-pack cigarette tax voters approved in 1998, is expected to give parents the opportunity to send their children to preschool within 10 years. About half of the 153,000 4-year-olds in Los Angeles County and 500,000 statewide now attend preschool.
First announced in 2002, the launch of universal preschool foundered over poor planning, political infighting and conflicts of interest. The program was originally expected to be launched last fall, but was delayed after several LAUP board members suddenly resigned.
First 5 LA has committed $600 million over five years to LAUP to make sure it gets off to a smooth start.
The Union Pacific Children's Center is one of 100 preschools that will receive funding from LAUP this year.
Those centers chosen to participate in the program go through an intensive site visit, during which reviewers examine teacher qualifications, interview parents and evaluate the quality of the learning environment for children. LAUP then assigns each center a "Star Quality Rating" of one to five stars.
As of Wednesday, LAUP had offered contracts to 26 center providers, representing 46 individual classrooms that will serve more than 800 4-year-olds.
In the coming weeks, as all 100 LAUP providers come online, they will collectively be serving more than 3,500 children.
Oh, so he's getting behind School Choice, huh? /s.o.
Rob Reiner: The Fat Facist
Indoctrinate the kiddies earlier and earlier...
I smell a new marketing/sales angle here:
"Buy a hamburger, fries and a coke for a nominal one-time fee of $5.29!"
Why is he giving this break for the rich people?
Why doesn't he do something for the middle class?
Reiner and his group has been collecting this money since 1998 and are only NOW doing something with it???????
And how nice for all the anti-smokers that favored this tax grab..........they can send their children to preschool being paid for by less than 1/4 of the population.
I can see it coming:
If you quit smoking, you are depriving preschoolers of an education.
more indoctrination by the socialists! LMAO
I think folks are finally getting wise to these clowns and more and more people are home schooling their children!
I'll be curious to see if Julia Roberts and the rest of the Hollywood crowd send their kids to these schools...
At least he does more than whine, not that I like the guy or his policies at all.
I seriously doubt your going to see kids of the rich sending their kids to this public pre-school. Unless it becomes chic to send them so they can get in to the "right" kindergarten and elementary schools.
Michael Stivic certainly wasn't just a role he played on TV.
And in the end, Archie was right about him all along.
You have both beautifully summed it up.
What happens to all the current preschools, the ones run for profit, by churches or other non-profits?
How will Meathead keep the prices reasonable when the second thing they'll do (after teaching the kids that fairies are real people, too) will be to allow the neocommunist teachers' union to organize ALL who work for these schools?
So, you gor union staff and fairy courses. What happens when the Mexicans want their kids to attend but don't want to pay? Why, Mexican scholarships, of course! No Christmas, Easter, Passover; only Kwanza, MLK Birthday, Caesar Chavez Day, May Day and Earth Goddess Day.
Meathead doesn't dare advertise this as "school choice" and will have to make this part of the public school system. The kids will still get a sh**ty education but Meathead will feel good about himself and some of his close friends and associates will get wealthy, wealthy enough to be able to send THEIR kids to good private schools.
And in 25+ years, when the percentage of Californians who smoke is far lower than it is today, from where will the money come to fund this program? At that point, cigarette taxes no longer will be enough. Hmmm, let me guess ... (BOHICA)
Emphasis on children at the 1-5 developmental level has rhyme and reason. Children who are effected by abuse and neglect during this phase have actual physical changes in brain development that change their capacity to socialize, learn etc. for the rest of their lives. After the age of five, it is very very difficult and expensive to help such an affected child. http://www.childtrauma.org/
A large portion of public funding ends up being focussed on these children. Investment in assisting parents by providing parenting classes, networking with other parents to prevent isolation, playgroups to help build interactive skills and other such activities are strategies to overcome the incidence of child neglect and abuse.
Human beings are hardwired to be raised in multi-family multi-generational groups of about 20-30. Modern families are isolated and disconnected. We often expect one or two people to be the child's entire set of caregivers with little or no support until the child is of school age. This does not match or human biology. It does not supply the enriched social development that a child may require for healthy devlopment.
Abuse and neglect (including emotional abuse and isolation) can occur in families of all social strata. For some, preschool can be a modern strategy to reconnect child and parent to the social fabric and stimulus that existed through most of human history.
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