Offering Preschool for All Wouldn’t Be Child’s Play

It was “dress-up” time at the preschool, and Kevonte immediately grabbed the cop uniform. He snatched the oversized blue jacket with the big silver star from the cupboard and pulled it over his 4-year-old body. Then he put on the officer’s cap.

Every day he does this. Inspects himself in the mirror. Strides proudly around the classroom. “He loves to dress up like a policeman,” says the teacher, Glenda Perrou. Why?

“He loves guns. His mom’s worried,” the teacher replies. “It started with a video gun at his baby-sitter’s. He developed a big fascination. He figured out if he was a cop, he could wear a gun. But not here. We had to have a discussion: ‘Not all policemen have guns. Some are like crossing guards.’

“Every once in a while I catch him on the sly, picking up an L-shaped block and pretending he’s shooting a gun. ‘That’s against the rules,’ I tell him. ‘We build with blocks. They’re not for shooting.’ ”

Kevonte is learning about cops and guns and careers at this state-funded preschool in a multiracial, low-income neighborhood of south Sacramento. In the cupboard, there are other uniforms. One girl likes the mail carrier outfit. She scribbles on pieces of paper, drops them into a mailbag and walks around delivering the “letters” to other kids and the teacher.

The children are using their imaginations. Developing their tiny muscles and eye coordination. “I did this all by myself,” exclaims a girl, having shaped some Play-Doh into a hamster. Nearby, there’s a newly arrived live hamster, and kids are drawing pictures of it.

During “circle time,” as the 24 tykes sit on the floor holding hamster cutouts, they build their vocabularies. “Put your hamster under you,” the teacher directs. “Put your hamster beside you. . . .”

Then there’s “mouse math.” Look at the number on the mouse and. . . .

Young brains are being wired.

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Delaine Eastin, the state superintendent of public instruction, is trying to coax California into universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents want it. And what parents wouldn’t, with so many working--and worrying about where to leave their children in a clean, safe, enriching environment?

“It’s the next big thing America has to do,” Eastin says. “Compulsory public education came out of the Civil War. In this century, we built great systems of public higher education. Now we have research off the chart that shows the payoff from quality preschool.”

Preschool kids--especially from low-income families--enter kindergarten better prepared to learn. They develop higher IQs. Are less likely to drop out, get pregnant as teens or wind up on welfare. More likely to attend college. To contribute.

There are more than 1.1 million California children ages 3 and 4, according to a 1998 report by an Eastin-appointed preschool task force. Roughly half are in some kind of child care. But 75% of these programs “are not educationally or developmentally appropriate,” asserts the report. “Some programs actually threaten children’s health and safety.”

Roughly 146,000 kids now attend state-funded preschools. An additional 80,000 are in federally financed Head Start. There are waiting lists for both programs. Meanwhile, welfare reform requires moms to work outside the home and park their kids somewhere.

Eastin is sponsoring legislation that would create a commission to recommend how to phase in universal preschool. The author is state Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento), who pushed a similar bill last year, but not very far. Some Republicans feared little kids would be “yanked from their homes,” she laments. “Child care interests thought it was threatening.”

It’s not on the Capitol radar.

“Preschool’s great, but very expensive,” notes Gary Hart, Gov. Gray Davis’ education advisor.

It’s $5-billion-a-year expensive and probably would require a tax hike.

Davis has his own modest education agenda, and preschool isn’t on it. Too difficult. Too costly.

Too bad.

“Studies show that each dollar invested in quality preschool returns $7 in benefits,” Eastin contends. “It costs $3,000 to put a child in preschool--

$24,000 to put somebody in the slammer.”

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At the preschool, teacher Perrou leads the children out of their portable classroom for a morning walk around the grounds. A patrol car passes. “Wave,” the teacher suggests. They all do. The cops wave back.

“Policemen can help you,” she says. “Like, if you were lost, you could tell them your name and your address. Does everybody know their address?”

A little boy fascinated with guns is learning that cops are good and guns aren’t toys. Not really. A good lesson. Tax money well spent. The rest is a bonus.