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The past few years, California has been all about the ABCs, 1-2-3s and the wheels on the bus, investing more than $5 billion in early childhood education.

But kindergarten, a staple of elementary schools for more than a century, remains optional. Despite nearly a half dozen legislative attempts to require it, California is one of 32 states that doesn鈥檛 mandate that all 5-year-olds attend school.

That might change next year. Legislators plan to introduce a new bill to require kindergarten and they鈥檙e confident that it will meet a better fate than its predecessors, which either died in committee or were vetoed, largely due to the cost.

鈥淜ids need to be around other kids, they need to be learning. It matters,鈥� said Patricia Lozano, executive director of Early Edge California, which advocates for early childhood education. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 see why California can鈥檛 make this happen.鈥�

The data, advocates say, Children who attend kindergarten have higher test scores in math and reading in third grade and beyond and higher high school graduation rates. They鈥檙e also less likely to be suspended or drop out later in their school careers.

Why some parents opt out

While California requires all school districts to offer kindergarten, it doesn鈥檛 require families to enroll their children. Most do, but about 5% a year opt out. The reasons vary: some families believe their children aren鈥檛 ready for the rigors of school, and others are happy with their children鈥檚 current arrangement, whether it鈥檚 a preschool, day care or staying home with family.

Latino families are the to send their children to kindergarten, data shows. Lozano said there鈥檚 a variety of reasons for this: they either don鈥檛 know about it due to a language barrier; they鈥檙e afraid to register their children in school due to immigration concerns; parents are working so hard they鈥檝e missed notices from the school district; or some combination of all three. Regardless, schools need to improve their outreach to that community, she said.

Cecelia Kiss, a bilingual kindergarten teacher in the Sacramento City Unified School District, said she recently had a student whose mother was deported, and the child was unable to attend school because there was no one available to drive her. Even though the child loved school and the family placed a high value on education, it was logistically impossible to get the child to school. It took several weeks for the school and family to make transportation arrangements.

鈥淔or Latinos, education is so important. We want to give our kids the best we can,鈥� said Kiss, who is also the parent of a kindergartner. 鈥淏ut sometimes we can鈥檛 do everything. We rely on kind teachers to care for our children, to help them learn, to help them be prepared for first grade.鈥�

said that the fact that kindergarten isn鈥檛 mandatory discourages already disadvantaged families from enrolling their children. In her experience, Latino families have tremendous respect for the public school system and if the system tells them kindergarten is optional, and therefore not a priority, 鈥渢hey listen to that.鈥�

That鈥檚 why she鈥檚 proposed two previous bills to make kindergarten mandatory. The state should be unequivocal in its message to families that early childhood education is essential for students鈥� success in school and life, she said. The state鈥檚 already to all 4-year-olds, expanded state-funded preschool and added more slots to its subsidized child care program. Bolstering kindergarten should be next, she said.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction agrees. He said this month that making kindergarten mandatory for 2026, and he pledged to support any bill that addresses it. Several legislators said they鈥檇 consider sponsoring one.

鈥楴ot an urgent need鈥�

Both of Rubio鈥檚 previous kindergarten bills died 鈥� in the Senate Appropriations Committee and when Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it. In his veto note, he said he supports early education generally but the state hadn鈥檛 budgeted the cost, estimated to be $268 million annually.

鈥淲hile the author’s intent is laudable 鈥� it is important to remain disciplined when it comes to spending, particularly spending that is ongoing,鈥� Newsom wrote.

Plenty of groups supported the bills, including the California Teachers Association 鈥� the state鈥檚 largest teachers union 鈥� and a slew of school districts. But it had a few opponents, namely the Homeschool Association of California. The group鈥檚 opposition was not based on the merits of kindergarten itself, but on the state鈥檚 ability to strip rights from parents.

鈥淢ost kids are already going to kindergarten. But some parents have good reasons for keeping their kids at home,鈥� said Jamie Heston, a member of the group鈥檚 board. 鈥淧arents want the choice to decide what鈥檚 best for their individual child.鈥�

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association hasn鈥檛 taken a position on the issue, but generally opposes new initiatives that cost money — including mandatory kindergarten. That stance isn鈥檛 likely to change if a kindergarten bill resurfaces, the group鈥檚 vice president Susan Shelley said this week.

鈥淔rom a budgetary point of view, there鈥檚 a lot of pressure this year to keep spending under control,鈥� Shelley said. 鈥淭his would not be a one-time cost. It would be ongoing. And there鈥檚 not an urgent need to expand kindergarten, compared to other more pressing needs facing the state right now.鈥�

Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley who studies early childhood education, said the Legislature should focus on more pressing needs facing the under-6 crowd. Those include how the rollout of transitional kindergarten has led to the closure of many preschools, leaving many 3-year-olds without a place to go. Also, Head Start is struggling with funding and other obstacles imposed by the Trump administration, including attempts to bar families who are not citizens. And even though California has expanded access to state-funded preschool, not enough families know they鈥檙e eligible.

鈥淣ot that many families opt out of kindergarten, so it鈥檚 not a huge need,鈥� Fuller said. 鈥淭here are more immediate concerns.鈥�

Learning gaps among students

Still, Rubio is confident that a kindergarten bill has a good chance of passing this year, largely because the Legislature has seen since it last voted on a聽 kindergarten bill in 2024. Twenty-seven new senators and Assembly members were elected last fall.

For Rubio, whose parents immigrated from Mexico, the issue is personal. Although she did well in school, her twin brother did not. At an early age, he was wrongly placed in special education, fell behind and struggled throughout his time in school, eventually dropping out. Rubio believes he would have fared better if he had a high-quality early childhood education.

She鈥檚 also an elementary school teacher who鈥檚 seen the gap between students who鈥檝e been to preschool, TK and kindergarten, versus those who had never enrolled in school at all until first grade. Children who鈥檝e been to kindergarten know how to hold a pencil, write their names, count to 20, take turns and maybe even read or do basic math, she said. Those who haven鈥檛 lag far behind their peers and some never catch up, she said.

鈥淚 have very vivid memories of my students just breaking down crying at the end of the year because they couldn’t do a test. They didn’t know the answers, and that’s so heartbreaking to see,鈥� said Rubio, who鈥檚 on leave from her job teaching at Monrovia Unified in Los Angeles County. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard on them, and it鈥檚 hard on the teachers because those children need a lot of extra help.鈥�

Lozano said she thinks the bill will pass eventually. The initiative would cost money, but the state would save money in the long run if more students succeeded in school and graduated.

鈥淚t took us 20 years to get TK. It takes time to change minds, change policies,鈥� Lozano said. 鈥淭here are so many benefits to kindergarten, especially for the kids who need it the most. We believe the benefits outweigh the costs.鈥�

This article was and was republished under the license.

The problem, according to Haspel, comes when our country begins to rely on big business to subsidize public goods 鈥� like health insurance for instance. Businesses may have a role to play, but history has shown businesses to be effectively looking out for their bottom line over employee well-being, particularly in the face of economic downtown, shareholder pressure or the 鈥渇ickle鈥� nature of the dynamic business market.

In his , co-published with the at New America (where I work as a staff writer) Haspel lays out the case for why relying on business to improve our country鈥檚 child care could be problematic. Haspel presented his report in a webinar which was followed by a panel discussion, much of which revolved around advocates who proposed a more inclusive 鈥渂oth and鈥� structure.

鈥淥n-site child care programs can be part of a broader system,鈥� Haspel said during the webinar. 鈥淪ome of the best [child cares] in the world exist as part of an on-site program.鈥� The question he asks is: who is child care for? 鈥淚f all you want to do is get parents to work, you don鈥檛 want to invest in a high-quality system. You just want a minimum system that works ok.鈥�

Haspel has already written extensively on this topic 鈥� from to cautioning the country on using . He proposes instead a business community that supports a larger publicly-financed child care system, one which has on-site care as part of the solution.

In a Q&A, Haspel explains why this 鈥渂oth-and” solution may not be the one that works 鈥� and the pitfalls of touting the unpopular opinion of the moment. But what could the way forward look like instead? A lightly edited conversation follows.

Rebecca Gale: The report is incredibly timely because the White House鈥檚 CHIPS Act includes a provision that employers who benefit from this Act should craft a program tailored to the location to provide child care for all of their workers. We are also seeing more states look to find ways to incentivize businesses to help shore up the child care industry. And much of the advocacy community has been quick to embrace these business-led solutions. What do you think we have to gain by looking toward businesses as the bedrock of such solutions, and are there other national models where this method has been successful?聽聽

Elliot Haspel: I absolutely understand the temptation to reach for employers given the dire straits the child care sector finds itself in 鈥� any port in a storm, as they say. There are two hypothetical advantages to this approach. First, I don鈥檛 think anyone can question that things like on-site child care centers can be immensely helpful to the lucky few who get to use them. We have such an expensive, supply-constrained system thanks to decades of failure to provide adequate public funding that these benefits do provide a, well, benefit. Secondly, there is an argument 鈥� and I think it has potential validity 鈥� that getting employers engaged around child care just for their employees can be an on-ramp for getting them engaged in the fight for a universal system.

But here鈥檚 the thing. There aren鈥檛 any national models I鈥檓 aware of where making businesses the primary source of child care has been successful. In what are commonly regarded as top-tier child care systems, such as in places like France and the Nordic countries, on-site child care programs exist but are part of the broader publicly-funded system. They are generally regulated the same as a community program and cost the same as a community program. An employee has options, and on- or near-site care is one option among many. In that sense, those offerings are more about physical proximity to a workplace as opposed to running child care through the employer-employee relationship.

RG: You鈥檝e said 鈥� rightly 鈥� that we don鈥檛 expect employers to provide 2nd grade. We鈥檝e managed to keep that public good to the purview of states and the federal government. What is it about the evolution of child care that makes this so drastically different that we are creating more incentives for businesses to get involved?

EH: So it鈥檚 worth doing a quick recap of the divergent histories around child care and public schools. The idea of public schooling has been around since the literal founding of America; Thomas Jefferson was an early champion. Horace Mann really kicked the movement into gear in the early-to-mid 19th century. The first compulsory schooling law was passed in Massachusetts in 1852, although scholars actually think the compulsory attendance laws lagged rather than drove widespread usage and taxpayer funding.

The arguments for public schools were varied, but largely rested on the idea that an educated populace was critical for a sustainable democracy, alongside more utilitarian arguments about a skilled workforce and forging a common American identity (or, in its more odious version, forced assimilation of immigrants and Native Americans). Even though public schools absolutely have a child-care function, that鈥檚 not how they are primarily perceived in the public eye, then or now.

Child care, on the other hand 鈥� with some exceptions 鈥� occupied a strange place because of a confluence of gender norms, economics (most early Americans lived on multigenerational family farms or ran a family business), and antiquated views of young children as either tiny adults or impulse-driven half-humans. It got almost zero public funding. Fast-forward all the way to the 1970s 鈥� I鈥檓 jumping through a lot of history! 鈥� and mothers are flooding into the labor force. There鈥檚 no child care system there to meet them. Nixon vetoes the Comprehensive Child Development Act in 1971. But there鈥檚 huge pent-up demand. So, who is there to meet them? The market. (Maxine Eichner calls this phenomenon the 鈥淔ree-Market Family鈥�). Now child care isn鈥檛 a critical piece of social infrastructure that informs the development of American democracy and safe, healthy, prosperous communities 鈥� now child care is a private service, a mere work support. It鈥檚 been kicked into a different plane, philosophically.

And both elected officials and advocates went along with it. I trace in how we鈥檝e had pushes for employer-sponsored child care benefits in every administration since Jimmy Carter. Even look at Build Back Better: 鈥減re-k鈥� was to be universal and free, 鈥渃hild care鈥� was to be acquired with a sliding fee scale. So, these mindsets are pretty deeply entrenched. If you accept child care is mere 鈥渨ork support,鈥� then sure, leaning on employers makes some sense. My argument is that child care is so, so much more than just a work enabler.

RG: The obvious analogy that has been touted 鈥� both in your report and presentation 鈥� is health care, and how and why businesses got involved as purveyors of health insurance. Yet the health insurance marketplace has proved complicated to unwind and many people 鈥� myself included 鈥� still rely on their employers to provide their families鈥� health benefits. Is this really so different from how employer-sponsored child care might look?

EH: The health insurance marketplace has proven complicated to unwind because we haven鈥檛 been able to muster the political will for a truly universal healthcare system, with respect to ObamaCare, it鈥檚 a half-measure. And in some ways, that鈥檚 exactly the point.

The more we entrench child care as a job-linked benefit, the harder it will be to transition away from that model, both politically and practically. So, if we want to replicate the employer health insurance model and get 50 percent of the country getting their child care via employers鈥攂ringing along job lock, volatility, limited options and inefficiencies, all while leaving millions out in the cold鈥攖hen I think we need to be honest with ourselves about the tradeoffs. Except, as I point out in the report, in some ways running child care through employers is even worse, because you鈥檝e also got the child to think of and there isn鈥檛 any equivalent of COBRA or the ACA marketplaces.

RG: Many experts argue that child care is in crisis: demand is high, supply is low, providers are paid poverty wages and the children are suffering when the quality of care is poor. In the panel discussion there was a lot of talk of 鈥渂oth-and,鈥� the idea that the business-sponsored child care programs could help improve quality, access and supply. Can you walk me through why you are wary of this approach, and what should be done instead?

EH: 鈥淏oth-and鈥� doesn鈥檛 work when you鈥檙e trying to squeeze the same balloon, and 鈥渂oth-and鈥� doesn鈥檛 work when there are opportunity costs. While I appreciate that some businesses are stepping up (I try to emphasize every time I talk about this that the intentions here are largely good!) and I wouldn鈥檛 tell them to stop.

What I would say is that policymakers need to stop using taxpayer money to incentivize them. Doing so comes at the cost of advancing more universal approaches or approaches that prioritize particular populations (like lower-income families), reinforces child care as a mere work support, and gives more political power to big business and investor-backed for-profit child care chains, both of which have shown themselves unaligned with the costs of an affordable, universal, pluralistic system with well-compensated early educators.

RG: The presentation and discussion included a concept in child care that I don鈥檛 think gets enough attention: the 鈥渕inimum child care viable fallacy.鈥� If all you want to do is get parents to work, you don鈥檛 want to invest in a high-quality system. You just want a minimum system that works ok. As a parent and someone who has covered child care as a reporting beat for a while, this makes absolute sense to me, but I wonder how such a comment has resonated with a wider audience, particularly decision makers who may view child care only as an economic necessity so that more parents can work?

EH: It鈥檚 interesting, I鈥檝e never had anyone challenge me on the fallacy. Again, I get why policymakers and advocates have, for about 25 years now, leaned so heavily on the economic/work arguments for child care. It brought some unexpected allies along, but one analogy I use is that it鈥檚 sort of like wedging a door open by breaking the wood. You make an opening, but it鈥檚 narrow and comes with quite a cost. Children are backgrounded in that frame. I don鈥檛 know that as a sector, we have fully reckoned with what it means to go full-bore on child care as a mere work support. This is actually the topic of the new book I鈥檓 working on, so I鈥檒l have a lot more to say in the coming months!

RG: One of my favorite discussion lines was 鈥渢oday鈥檚 stopgap measure is tomorrow鈥檚 status quo.鈥� It really speaks to the fractured nature of our public policy landscape, but I wonder how it impacts the way our country is shaping the support for the child care debate. Where do you think this leads us, and what do you think this debate looks like 5 years into the future?

EH: If we double-down on employer-sponsored child care benefits 鈥� and continue to use public funds to incentivize them 鈥� in 5 years, I fear we are going to be in a place where far more parents are dependent on their employers for child care, where big business and big corporate child care chains are politically dominant in the child care debate, and where we are further than we even are today from a universal system that works well for all involved.

We need to say this out loud: a functional child care system will take, at minimum, $100 to $150 billion a year. That鈥檚 good and proper for a human service that undergirds healthy children, healthy families and healthy communities. I fail to see how rushing headlong to foreground employers in child care puts us on a credible path to that system.

There is a difference between an incremental step on the path towards an effective system and a step that takes us down a different path. The pursuit of widespread employer-linked child care is the wrong path for America.

Rebecca Gale is a staff writer with the Better Life Lab at New America where she covers child care. The Better Life Lab hosted the event and co-published Haspel鈥檚 report 鈥� which .

Each state deployed the American Rescue Plan Act funds to stabilize their child care sectors. The success of the American Rescue Plan stabilization funding provided the impetus for select states to dedicate their own resources to continue the investments. Whether the product of years or organized lobbying, or a decision to reroute surplus funds back to families and educators, 11 states and the District of Columbia have taken concrete steps to shore up their own child care sectors.

from The Century Foundation, authors Julie Kashen and Laura Valle-Gutierrez detail the how and why of states deciding to invest in child care. Kashen was kind enough to share some of her insights from the report with Early Learning Nation magazine. A lightly edited Q&A follows:

Rebecca Gale: It took the American Rescue Plan to show what so many advocates of robust social policy have been saying for decades: government investment works and can make a difference, stabilizing industries and lifting people out of poverty. But the moment the funds ran dry, many policymakers were satisfied to return to the status quo. What do you think changed from their initial support of ARPA to their unwillingness to continue what has been shown to positively impact so many lives?聽

Julie Kashen: First, let鈥檚 acknowledge how bad the status quo was. Before anyone had heard of the COVID-19 pandemic, families struggled to find quality, affordable child care, and child care providers grappled to retain staff and afford basic necessities.

There were a lot of policymakers who were not satisfied to return to that status quo. In fact, the House of Representatives in November 2021, passed historic legislation proposed by President Biden 鈥� the Build Back Better Act 鈥� which included that would have lowered child care costs for nine out of 10 families with young children, while giving parents the choice to find the right program for their family in center-based, home-based, family-based, school-based and Head Start programs.

It would have expanded free preschool for three- and four-year-olds, raised wages in the early education sector and supported the cost of high-quality care. In fact, when ARPA passed, many envisioned that when the funding expired, there would be the foundation of a sustainable child care and early learning system in place. Unfortunately, that bill, with no support from Republicans, , and so did not become law.

When the funding expired, and both called for $16 billion in emergency child care funding to address the immediate needs caused by the child care stabilization funding cliff. So, I would argue that we have quite a number of policymakers fighting hard for change at the federal level, but being blocked in their progress by partisan politics.

RG: D.C. and the 11 states that opted to invest in child care are overwhelmingly 鈥渂lue鈥� states (D.C., California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont, Washington) with a handful of 鈥渞ed鈥� or 鈥減urple鈥� ones thrown in (Alaska, New Hampshire, Kentucky). to find affordable child care, despite party affiliation. What do you think sets the states apart that opted to direct extra funds to the child care sector?

JK: All of the states that deployed their own resources for stabilizing their child care sectors experienced the positive impact of the ARPA stabilization funds and saw the benefits to communities and local economies of putting resources into children and families. Most of the states had long-term organizing campaigns, including grassroots organizing and union campaigns, that combined with a moment of greater awareness of, support for child care and political leadership that helped them succeed.

It鈥檚 also worth noting that there are a number of 鈥渞ed鈥� and 鈥減urple鈥� states that took additional action leveraging federal funds. While we did not include them in our list of states that put their own resources in, the results of their leadership are similar using federal dollars. In , for example, after Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers鈥� multiple attempts to move $356 million through the state legislature were blocked by legislative opponents, he reallocated $175 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to cover half of this gap. Missouri, Ohio and North Dakota are just some of the

RG: Ten states went through their state legislatures to take action, but New Mexico went through a ballot initiative to create a permanent fund which has the potential to offer some of the longest lasting impact (D.C. took action through the Office of the Mayor). Have you found that social issues like support for child care could do better at the ballot box than in state assemblies?

JK: We know child care is popular among voters regardless of political party. In fact, from GQR and the Child Care for Every Family Network shows four in five Republican parents of children under 18 (79%) support guaranteed child care, as do 83% of independent parents and 97% of Democrat parents. So, ballot initiatives are often a good route.

But it鈥檚 worth noting that more states improved their child care systems and invested in child care in 2023 than we have seen in any recent time, much of it because they finally had the federal resources to help. So, we now have clear evidence that when the federal government and states come together to take action, children, families and local economies all benefit.

That said, a concerning trend we also saw in 2023 was that when states found themselves with significant surpluses, rather than invest in families, that primarily benefited wealthy households and corporations. These tax cuts will reduce state revenues precisely at a time when more revenue is needed to invest in child care. The amount of lost state revenue will grow over time and make it even harder for these states to invest needed funding on child care and reap the economic benefits of those investments. Not only have these short-sighted tax cuts reduced states鈥� abilities to invest in child care programs, this lack of investment can induce further collapses in state revenues, since we know child care investments support local economies.

RG: Child care is an industry where the math will never quite add up. Your report quotes Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as saying the current state of the nation鈥檚 child care is 鈥渢he textbook example of a broken market鈥� since existing market forces cannot solve it. What about the nature of child care makes it both different from other market services, and makes it hard for people and policymakers to understand why federal investment is needed?

JK: Families across all income levels share the same determination to provide the best possible foundation for their children, especially in their early years. Two-thirds of children under age 6 have all of their parents (either solo or coupled) in the workforce. Parents need the freedom to afford child care and to have peace of mind that their children are safe and nurtured while parents go to work or to school and make the best choices for their families.

Most families don鈥檛 send children to fourth grade with a check to cover the cost of their teacher鈥檚 salaries or to maintain the school building. The same should be true for child care. Our shared interest in making sure our children thrive shouldn鈥檛 start when they turn five. Like public education, public libraries, safe food and clean drinking water, child care benefits all of us. And child care and early learning investments are as essential to economic growth as physical infrastructure or energy.

Most parents need child care at a time when they can least afford it because they are early in their career. This has particular impacts for families of color due to, at least in part, ongoing systemic and structural inequities that perpetuate overrepresentation of communities of color in jobs paying lower wages, the ranks of those experiencing higher unemployment rates, and families living below the federal poverty level. Unlike college tuition, which is also too expensive, parents don鈥檛 have eighteen years to plan and save. To access child care, families are forced to pay an amount put together patchwork solutions that create instability for their work lives and for their children, or be one of the fortunate few who receive child care assistance.

Meanwhile, will continue to put upward pressure on prices as child care businesses will have to raise wages to attract early educators – or go out of business. Even before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the child care sector, data from the Center for American Progress showed that more than half of families with young children live in a child care desert (a census tract where there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots).

Underlying all of this is the devaluing of care work in American society. One of the many legacies of slavery is the shouldering of care responsibilities by the people in our society with the least power and fewest resources. In the early twentieth century, white lawmakers excluded care workers鈥攚ho were overwhelmingly Black women鈥攆rom fair wages and labor protections to preserve the status quo. To this day, our culture and policies continue to undervalue caregiving, leaving caregivers underpaid or unpaid, and without the support they need to thrive.

This history has also contributed to the expectation that family care is an individual responsibility, rather than a communal one: if you struggle, there鈥檚 something wrong with you. In reality, care has been a universal need and a public good that requires public-policy-supported solutions, and now more than ever must be treated as such. This is why the pandemic removing the invisibility cloak from all of the hard work of caregiving that had been going on all along was so important.

RG: Even the most generous state support 鈥� like Vermont and New Mexico 鈥� is not a substitute for robust federal support. From a policy perspective, what could that federal support look like, and what do you think is possible in the existing political climate?

JK: The Build Back Better Act is the closest we鈥檝e come to the robust, comprehensive child care and early learning system we鈥檝e needed since . Build Back Better would have made sure that every family who needs it could find child care that works for their families, nurtures their children and doesn鈥檛 break the bank.

The, reintroduced in April of last year, took many of the lessons of the Build Back Better fight and the American Rescue Plan implementation, and built on a solid foundation to become an even stronger approach.

While Congressional champions, advocates and organizers work toward the next big opportunity, the immediate need is significant. The hope is that a combination of an increase in existing child care and early learning programs through the FY24 appropriations process and supplemental emergency child care funding will both make it through Congress as soon as possible.

RG: You鈥檝e been researching and working on social policy for the better part of two decades, yet it took the COVID-19 pandemic to finally give child care its moment in the sun. As we move further away from the emergency lockdown phase of Covid, how do you think people will remember this time in our country鈥檚 evolution on public policy? Do you see this as a turning point?

JK: The turning point is that 1. People saw clearly the value of caregiving; 2. The government took historic action that worked and we can now point to as evidence of the value of these investments.

The pandemic underscored the importance of investing in our care infrastructure 鈥� it crystallized how caregiving makes all other work possible, and how our failure to treat care as a public good burdens families and stifles our economy. The U.S. investments in children and families during the pandemic demonstrated the life-changing and economy-sustaining power of equitable policy. The investments in child care, the child tax credit and increased home and community-based services for older adults and disabled people were historic, serving millions of families, reducing poverty and supporting more people to age with dignity at home.

I remain optimistic, but the ease with which many of these policies have since been allowed to sunset, or roll back, or be eliminated altogether shows the extent to which bias, discrimination, and inequity are built into our economic system and structures. Two steps forward, one step back 鈥� it鈥檚 frustrating, but it鈥檚 progress that we can keep building on.

Chris Riback:聽Vice Mayor Abbot. Thank you so much for joining us.

Katie Abbott:聽Thanks for having me.

Chris Riback:聽Looking Forward to chatting.

Katie Abbott:聽Yes.

Chris Riback: Describe Pinecrest, Florida, for me please. What is the community like? What are your biggest challenges?

Katie Abbott:聽So, Pinecrest, Florida is a municipality of Miami-Dade County. So, Miami-Dade county is this big. It has 34 municipalities, and we are one of them. We’re a suburb of Miami. It has about 18,000 residents. We’re 26 years old. We just celebrated our 26 anniversary last week, so we’re very proud of that. We are, some still consider us a semi-rural community. We are very family-focused. We’re school-focused. It’s a wonderful place to be. I grew up there. It’s just night and day from when I was there.

Chris Riback: I understand that one of your governing philosophies is cradle to grave.

Katie Abbott:聽Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Riback:聽Tell me about the cradle part. What’s the role of government in early childhood learning?

Katie Abbott:聽So, it’s interesting in Pinecrest, because our school system, our public school system is actually Miami-Dade. So, it’s a bigger picture, but we work so closely with our schools. We have five public schools in Pinecrest. We have an education committee that we meet monthly with our principals, with our school board, with the whole district. We have parents who are interested. We give yearly grants to our five schools of $10,000 each. So, there’s a real tight connection between our local government and Miami-Dade County public schools.

Chris Riback:聽What’s that coordination like what? What lessons, what guidance might you have for other officials who also have to do that type of coordination, because any effort like this requires working across levels of government, and then also with local community members?

Katie Abbott:聽 Absolutely. I think it’s all about reaching out, and making connections, and getting to know your representative. So, for example, our school board member, I know her well. I can email her. We’ve talked. We’re very open, and I think sometimes even elected officials are hesitant to reach out to other elected officials.

Chris Riback:聽Yes.

Katie Abbott:聽But you really need to keep that line of communication open in order to get things done.

Chris Riback:聽What is the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council?

Katie Abbott:聽It’s my favorite.

Chris Riback:聽Well, tell me about it then please.

Katie Abbott: I am so proud. I co-coordinate our Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council. It’s 24 students who live in Pinecrest. They go to various schools. So, they go to private schools. They go to public schools. They’re eighth grade to 12th grade, and they’re just students who are devoted to learning about government number one, and number two, giving back to the community. So, they volunteer at our events. We hold workshops for youth. Anyone is able to come, and then we talk about to topics that are of interest to them.

Chris Riback:聽What’s of interest to them? What are they bringing to you these days?

Katie Abbott:聽So, okay. So, right before I came here, we had one on the environment and the changing climate. We had a local executive director of an art facility come and talk about rising sea levels. We talked about elevation of the student’s houses. They got to make a flag that put, they put the elevation on it. They planted a mangrove. We talk about college interviews, 101, college hazing, topics that are of interest to that age group.

Chris Riback:聽How do you also navigate, because you’ve talking about a lot of important issues, sometimes personal issues how do you navigate progress when an environment sometimes can become political? We see news from Florida, but Florida’s not the only place.

Katie Abbott:聽Right.

Chris Riback:聽Every state, every local municipality has its politics. How do you push past politics to make progress?

Katie Abbott:聽Absolutely. In Florida, in particular, it’s getting a little bit more challenging, especially with recent proposed legislation that we’re trying to navigate. Here at the conference yesterday, we were talking about efforts that they were proposing that actually, I might not be able to do, going forward. So, it’s very challenging. We can continue to work on it. We continue to do what we think is best for our community and our children. We just, we can’t give up, right? We have to keep doing what we need to do.

Chris Riback:聽Got to keep pushing forward.

Katie Abbott:聽Yes.

Chris Riback:聽Now, you know that I cannot have a conversation with you without asking as well, about Palmetto High School.

Katie Abbott:聽Yes.

Chris Riback:聽I understand that there’s a debate team that has had a few stars-

Katie Abbott: A few.

Chris Riback:聽… of which, you might be among the most famous, but maybe-

Katie Abbott:聽Absolutely not.

Chris Riback:聽Maybe not the most famous.

Katie Abbott:聽Not the most famous. So, our school, our local public school, support public schools, has produced many people who are successful in the world, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, our current Supreme Court nominee. Jeff Bezos went there. He was valedictorian. Our current Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy-

Chris Riback:聽Yes.

Katie Abbott:聽 … went there. Many more successful people, whether you know them or not out of this public school, outside of Miami, Florida.

Chris Riback:聽There’s a lesson there isn’t there?

Katie Abbott:聽There’s a lesson there. There is certainly a lesson there. We have to keep supporting our public education.

Chris Riback:聽 Got to keep supporting public education, and got to watch out for who comes out of Palmetto, because they might run a big company, or become a new Supreme Court Justice.

Katie Abbott: Yes. Absolutely.

Chris Riback:聽Or a Vice-

Katie Abbott:聽Or a Surgeon General.

Chris Riback: Or a Surgeon General, or a Vice Mayor.

Katie Abbott:聽Or a NASA astronaut. We’ve one of those.

Chris Riback:聽You have one of those?

Katie Abbott:聽聽Yes.

Chris Riback:聽聽Or a Vice Mayor of Pinecrest.

Katie Abbott:聽Or a Vice Mayor of Pinecrest.

Chris Riback:聽Thank you so much for joining us today.

Katie Abbott:聽Thank you so much. This was great.