'Preschool for All' gets $8.4 million By MATT KAPKO Half Moon Bay Review October 6, 2004 San Mateo is now one of the first counties in California to introduce a program that officials hope will eventually provide free access to preschool for needy children between the ages of 3 and 5. Preschool for All is being administered by First 5 San Mateo County through funds generated from a voter-approved initiative in 1998 that adds a 50-cent tax to all packs of cigarettes to support programs for pregnant women and children up to five years old. Preschool for All is set to commit $1.8 million a year for the next three years and a state commission is matching that commitment with $1 million each of those years. Those funds, combined, generate $8.4 million for the program, which is expecting to be up and running by the end of the year. "This is in a sense a jump-start. We can't ever fund it fully," said Kris Perry, executive director of First 5 San Mateo County. "No current funding source is adequate to meet the need for Preschool for All," she said, adding that she's beginning to look for alternative sources of funding. The funds from First 5 San Mateo County are given to the county office of education and then passed along to the programs. Parents have to fill out an application for their child to be accepted in the program, but there is no set criteria used to determine eligibility. It's done randomly, Perry said. "There will be fewer spaces than kids for a while," she said. The first programs will begin in the Ravenswood and Redwood City school districts over the hill, areas that have the highest percentage of preschoolers, according to the organization. "The county has been doing its planning for three years," Perry said. "They gave us our grant first because we were ready first." She's excited about the program and the potential improvements it could bring to the county. "They say for every dollar you spend on preschool you'll probably save $7 in other services later on," she said. "Kids who are in quality preschool programs do far better in school." Although the program's popularity is widespread throughout political ranks, some professional educators, including one in Half Moon Bay, are skeptical of the program's potential. "I think it's making quite a leap," said Tom Whiting, director of Los Ninos Nursery School in Half Moon Bay. He's troubled by the suggestion that young kids benefit more from the company of professionals than their parents. "I have some serious misgivings about the Preschool for All proposals," Whiting said. "Childhood is too fleeting as it is. "What troubles me is that people will begin to see this as a panacea," he said. "And it isn't. "That's what they're saying: if you spend less time with your children they'll do better in school," he said. "Nothing could be further from he truth. "Will they be better human beings or just better in school?" he said, adding that he thinks children from low-income families stand to gain more significant opportunities from the program. "I'd much rather have that money going into the (University of California) system ... rather than funding a whole new bureaucracy," he said. "We should go back to having a free higher education system." Home