Education

The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

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January 13, 2025 - Update (1/16/25): A set of tables detailing various solutions and proposals has been appended to the online version of this report. They are available using the HTML link above.

On January 10, 2025, Governor Newsom’s administration presented its proposed state budget to the California Legislature. In this report, we provide a brief summary of the Governor’s budget based on our initial review as of January 12. In the coming weeks, we will analyze the plan in more detail and release many additional issue-specific budget analyses. For those additional analyses, please see our budget page.

The 2024-25 Budget: State Preschool

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April 16, 2024 - This post analyzes 2024-25 Governor’s budget proposal related to State Preschool.

The 2023-24 California Spending Plan: Child Care and State Preschool

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November 17, 2023 - This post summarizes the state’s 2023-24 spending package for child care and preschool. It is part of our Spending Plan series, which contains posts focused on each major sector of the state budget.

Update (12/20/23): Corrected total child care program costs in Figure 1.

The 2023-24 Budget: California Spending Plan Series

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October 2, 2023 - Each year, our office publishes California Spending Plan, a series of publications that summarize the annual state budget. The final version of Overview of the California Spending Plan is presented here along with short online posts that focus on major areas and features of the 2023-24 budget package. As these posts become available, we will add them below.

The 2023-24 Budget: Transitional Kindergarten and State Preschool Proposals

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February 14, 2023 - This brief provides an overview and analysis of the Governor’s proposals for transitional kindergarten and State Preschool.

Overview of Child Care and Preschool Programs

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February 13, 2023 - Presented to: Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review

The 2023-24 Budget: Child Care Proposals

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February 9, 2023 - This brief provides an overview and initial analysis of the Governor’s key child care budget proposals for 2023-24, estimates of child care program costs, and the effects of allowing some temporary policies to expire.

The 2023-24 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

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January 13, 2023 - On January 10, 2023, Governor Newsom presented his proposed state budget to the Legislature. In this report, we provide a brief summary of the proposed budget based on our initial review. In the coming weeks, we will analyze the plan in more detail and release several additional budget analyses.

The 2022-23 California Spending Plan: Child Care and Preschool

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October 27, 2022 - This post summarizes the state’s 2022-23 spending package for child care and preschool. It is part of our Spending Plan series, which contains posts focused on each major sector of the state budget.

The 2022-23 Budget: California Spending Plan Series

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September 29, 2022 - Each year, our office publishes California Spending Plan, a series of publications that summarize the annual state budget. The Overview of the California Spending Plan is presented here along with short online posts that focus on major areas and features of the 2022-23 budget package. As more of these posts become available, we will add them below.

The 2022-23 Budget: State Preschool

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February 22, 2022 - The Governor’s budget includes several proposals related to State Preschool, with the primary goal of increasing the number of children with disabilities enrolled in the programs. In this post, we provide background on State Preschool, describe the Governor’s proposals, and provide our comments associated with these proposals.

A Review of Child Care and Preschool Program Flexibilities in Certain Counties

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May 13, 2021 - In this post we provide background on child care and preschool program flexibilities that have been granted to certain counties. We then assess these flexibilities and provide issues for the Legislature to consider in deciding whether to maintain flexibilities.

Overview of Federal Relief for K-12 Education and Child Care

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April 29, 2021 - Since March 2020, the federal government has passed three relief packages that assist K-12 schools and child care providers in their response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This post provides a brief summary of how the three federal relief packages affect K-12 education and child care and describes how the state has used these federal funds, as of April 2021.

The 2021-22 Budget: Child Care Proposals

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February 11, 2021 - This post analyzes the Governor’s proposal to transition state administration of child care programs. We further provide options the Legislature could consider to support child care programs during the pandemic.

Correction (2/18/2021): A previous version of this post stated DSS released a draft of the transition plan. This version is corrected to state DSS released a transition plan guide.

The 2021-22 Budget: Transitional Kindergarten Expansion Package

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February 5, 2021 - This post analyzes the Governor’s Transitional Kindergarten expansion proposals and offers comments for the Legislature to consider.