CA private daycare centers struggle under free early-ed expansion

I’m CalMatters reporter Nigel Duara and I’m subbing in for Lynn today.

Education dollars have been a major element of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s seven-plus years in office. But two bills he signed have created unforeseen consequences that are impacting school districts and school kids’ families.

CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang writes that one of Newsom’s signature education initiatives has made private daycares almost infeasible economically, and the people most affected are those who can least afford it. 

Newsom’s $3 billion-per-year universal transitional kindergarten proposal differs from that of other states, where families can choose between a free program at school or at a private center, which serve as all-day daycares for infants and kids up to 4 years old. 

Instead, California expanded only transitional kindergarten as the free option at public schools while the other public options remain limited, both by family income and the number of slots available. A December UC Berkeley report cited free transitional kindergarten as part of the cause for more than 150 preschool closures in Los Angeles County between 2020 and 2024. 

Middle- and upper-income families found the transition to free transitional kindergarten to be a simple replacement: They switched from expensive private daycare to a free public program. But many working families need alternative hours that only private child care providers can offer.

The result: In LA County between 2021 and 2024, enrollment growth in the wealthiest areas was triple that in the poorest.

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School districts themselves are facing a different hurdle: the cost of rising insurance premiums since a 2019 law made it easier for sexual abuse survivors to sue government agencies, such as school districts, CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones writes. 

• Dorothy Johnson, legislative advocate for the Association of California School Administrators: “It’s become unmanageable. We desperately need guardrails, or the situation will become very dire.”

To pay for those rising premiums, school districts have left teacher vacancies unfilled and cancelled renovation projects. The numbers are stark: A year after the average school district paid a settlement of $1 million or more, the share of its students who met the state’s math standard fell by 3.7 percentage points, and the number of students meeting the reading standard dropped by 3.4 percentage points. That’s opposite the statewide trend: Scores generally have been rising since the pandemic ended.

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Assembly lines worked for Cheez Whiz and the Model T, so why shouldn’t they work for constructing houses? Well, lots of reasons, but the biggest is the fear of the unknown, writes CalMatters’ Ben Christopher. 

Regulators, investors, contractors and even the buyers themselves are nervous about factory-constructed homes, but state legislators in two select committee hearings are at least “modular-curious” in the hopes of building more homes to alleviate California’s housing shortage. 

The hearings and a forthcoming report are meant to build political momentum and legislative buy-in for a package of bills coming in the next few weeks. 

The impediments to factory-constructed housing can be seen in the collapse of the Silicon Valley-based modular start up Katerra, which dumped $2 billion into the modular housing market before filing for bankruptcy in 2021. 

One major obstacle is the front-loaded costs to get a factory up and running. Supporters of pre-fabricated housing say the state could step in to help with those up-front risks, such as having the taxpayers act as insurers for factories and developers.

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A shuttered rural California hospital needs $40 million or more to bring back its staff, while Kaiser Permanente health care workers entered a fourth week striking for improved wages. 

The Glenn Medical Center, the only hospital in Glenn County, closed last fall after a federal review found it was 3 miles too close to another hospital in Colusa County — the hospital is 32 miles away and needed to be at least 35 miles away. A deal in Congress waived that requirement, writes CalMatters’ Ana B. Ibarra. Now, the hospital is hoping for a lifeline from the state in the form of a $300 million loan program proposed Thursday. 

Meanwhile, the union representing nurses and health care workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job for the first time in its history on Jan. 26. They are seeking a 25% raise over four years, citing inflation since their last contract. Kaiser Permanente countered with a 21.5% increase over four years and said any more could increase patient premiums. No agreement appears imminent, writes CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang.

The California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to list six groups of mountain lions as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act last week. That means protecting not just the roughly 4,200 cats themselves, but their habitats as well, CalMatters’ Rachel Becker writes. 

That designation drew the ire of ranchers, who say they lose their livestock to the cats, and residents of remote Central Coast suburbs, who complained to the commission about mountain lions taking their pets. A spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said the cats’ protected status still allows the department to manage troublesome mountain lions, prioritizing non-lethal deterrents. 

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