In Georgia, only 70% of four-year olds are in some form of publicly subsidized preschool. In Oklahoma, just over half participate. And, in New York, only about one-quarter participate in the programs. This article made me question why aren't other states trying to fund such programs.
So I decided to try to find some financial data. This search came back with overwhelming results. I glanced through these articles and found the vest I could use fro this paper. My first article dealing with financial data was a newspaper article from The Sacramento Bee titled "Making the Leap Universal Preschool Pushed to Help Kids Preschool State Lacks Money for Program."" This article answered some of my questions about how sates plan to fund the "universal preschool- programs. " California has a proposal "The California First 5- distributed proposition 10 which using the tax from cigarettes to programs serving children under age five. It supports some preschool programs but does not bring in enough money to fund preschool for all the states children."" (Bee 1) Also, in this article it states the "California Teachers Association has paired with Hollywood director Rob Reiner to author a ballot initiative that asks voters to raise commercial property taxes to pay for preschool- (Bee 1). "Two-thirds of the money raised by this tax would go to K-12 schools. The remainder, about $1.5 billion, would create universal preschool for all California four-year olds, Reiner said (Bee 3).
Another sate contemplating a plan of "universal preschool- is Illinois. In Education Weekly, the article titled "Illinois' Optimistic Governor Seeks Preschool Program- discusses Governor Rod Blagojevich's plan to start this program. "The governor promised legislation on March 12, 2003 that he would present a plan for a universal preschool program for all of the states children deemed at risk, an initiative to be phased in over time because of cost- (Cavanagh 1).
