Rural Preschool Provides a Preview of What May Be

When a free public preschool opened last fall in Nuevo, a dusty rural patch of unincorporated Riverside County near Perris, Michelle Spoon was thrilled. Without it, she would have had to spend hundreds a month and drive an hour to give her 3-year-old twins a head start on their education.

“It’s just amazing how much they’re learning,” said Spoon, a stay-at-home mom who volunteers in her children’s classroom. “They’re going to be so prepared for kindergarten.”

The Nuevo program, among the state’s first so-called universal public preschools, will be replicated across California if voters approve a ballot initiative in June that would tax the wealthy to fund preschool for all children.

“I really believe that preschool will be the great equalizer in terms of educational opportunity for students,” said state Supt. Jack O’Connell, who presided over the Nuevo center’s opening in September.

“We know the starting line is not the same for all students.... We have an achievement gap in California. If we wait to address it until high school, it’s too late.”

Nuview Union School District officials were spurred to create the universal preschool by kindergarten teachers who noted that preschool students had academic and social advantages -- from knowing their letters to knowing to raise their hand to ask questions.

“The differences were just night and day,” said Brenda Armstrong, a kindergarten teacher in the 1,550-student district. “The kids coming from preschool have a strong disposition where they want to learn and take the next step and take that risk to get to the next level.... Kids who had preschool experience were empowered by their knowledge.”

Several studies have shown that preschool graduates enter kindergarten with clear advantages.

Their pre-reading skills are 8 months ahead of children who have not attended preschool, pre-writing skills 6 months ahead and pre-math 4 months ahead, according to a study by Georgetown University’s Center for Research on Children in the United States.

But other studies have shown that the preschool advantages fade once students reach third grade. This has led some to question whether the estimated $2.3 billion a year that would be raised by taxing the wealthiest 1% of Californians under Proposition 82 would be better used to fund education programs that target the disadvantaged.

Universal preschool is becoming increasingly common nationwide.

At least 10 states either have free preschool for all, are creating it or are considering doing so. On Sunday, Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich called for universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds in his state.

Nearly 65% of California’s 4-year-olds attend preschools, which vary widely in quality and include private schools, church-based efforts and state and federally subsidized programs for the poor.

Universal preschool proponents note that subsidized preschools for the needy often fill to capacity; a 2005 study found that 76% of public preschools statewide have waiting lists.

In Riverside County, the situation is bleaker: 97% are at capacity.

If voters approve Proposition 82, backed by director and political activist Rob Reiner, all preschools will be taught by credentialed teachers with bachelor’s degrees.

In Nuevo, a degreed teacher is assigned no more than 20 students per classroom, and has the assistance of one other teacher, and at times, two.

Before the preschool opened, the only local option was a state-funded facility for disadvantaged children. But enrollment there is restricted by income; a family of four has to earn less than $39,000 a year.

The Nuevo preschool costs about $400,000 a year to run and is funded by a state cigarette tax voters approved in 1998 to help children in their first five years.

Eighty students attend class for three hours a day, and preschool enrollment in the fast-growing community is expected to more than triple in eight years.

At the start of each session, parents spend half an hour with their children.

Norma Sonora helped her 4-year-old son George practice tracing letters to spell “fish” and “nest.”

“I was really excited” when the preschool opened, she said. “I’d wanted him to go to preschool to get him ready for kindergarten, and to interact with children his age -- he’s an only child. All kids should be able to have the privilege to go to preschool.”

Asked what his favorite class activity is, George smiles and whispers, “Play-Doh.”

His classroom is divided into areas, including a library with beanbag cushions and picture books, and an art section with easels and the children’s clay sculptures on the wall.

The week’s theme is animals. Pictures of the children’s pets hang on a wall along with the week’s vocabulary words, among them “groom” and “aquarium.”

After the parents left, teachers gathered the children in a circle. Five students held up signs printed with a number from one to five, and scrambled to arrange themselves in sequential order.

“Are we in order, you guys?” teacher Esther Carrillo asked.

“Yes!” the children shouted.

“Can’t trick you,” Carrillo replied. “You guys are so smart.”

Later, the students sang a song -- “I want to be a dog” -- while bouncing on all fours, panting and howling at an imaginary moon.

“I want to run in the street/get mud on my feet/and jump up on your clothes.”

“You guys are doing great,” Carrillo said as she finished a sketching lesson that used a story to teach students to draw a dog named “Bingo.”

Most of the children’s papers featured a freckled dog with big ears -- simple drawings that Carrillo said show that the children are learning to follow directions.

“You’re ready to go to kindergarten, a lot of you,” she said.