Revised budget would include $500 college saving accounts for low-income 1st graders
by John Fensterwald, EdSource
With eye-popping state revenues feeding an ambitious agenda, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday multi-year plans for transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds, full funding for summer school and after school for 2 million children, hundreds of new service-based community schools and a $2 billion program to set up a $500 college savings account for every low-income child entering public school.
At a press conference at an elementary school in Castroville, outside of Monterey, he called his proposals a “$20 billion blueprint over the next five years for the total transformation” of schools. Even more upbeat, Linda Darling-Hammond, Newsom’s adviser and president of the State Board of Education, characterized the spending as “a set of interlocking interventions and investments that are going to catapult California back to that leadership position (in education) and more important, it will enable all of our children to be on a path to genuine thriving.”
Newsom also reiterated what he has been recently saying: He expects all school districts and charter schools to revert to full-day, in-person instruction in the fall, as they did before the pandemic. Those districts that fail to provide full-day instruction will not be eligible for student funding, according to administration officials who offered a preview of Newsom’s updated state budget for K-12 schools.