Master Plan for Early Learning and Care
Updates
Master Plan for Early Learning and Care: California for All Kids
The Master Plan for Early Learning and Care: California for All Kids provides a strong research-based roadmap for building a comprehensive and equitable early learning and care system over the next decade. The Plan will help the state better understand the crisis families, children and early learning and care providers are facing amid the COVID-19 pandemic and identifies key policy goals to ensure that all California children can thrive physically, emotionally and educationally in their early years through access to high-quality early learning and care programs.
For more information,
- Visit the interactive Master Plan for Early Learning and Care website
- Read the news release announcing the Plan
Early Learning & Care Guidebook
COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions are easing. Essential workers and families continue to need child care and more families are returning to work outside the home. Many providers have stayed open, others are considering reopening or being asked to serve additional children. California’s children can continue their healthy development and learning when parents and providers follow the safety guidelines and resources on this website. You will find all up-to-date guidance and resources to create a safe and nurturing early learning and care environment for children and providers.
About
The stroller is California’s first vehicle for upward mobility—it’s time to push early learning and care forward to help families grow their children stronger. High-quality early learning and care is the first step toward increasing achievement, maximizing state investments in education, health, and workforce development—and lifting families out of poverty. California For All Kids is the state’s effort to develop a comprehensive Master Plan for Early Learning and Care that can be implemented and sustained for the benefit of all children and families. From parent perspectives, community organizing, curriculum, equitable access, social justice, financing, and policy—California For All Kids brings the best of what experts in the state know and combines it with listening to the needs of parents and communities. This will help California plan a system that works from the ground up and empowers parents to develop children capable of seizing opportunities in school, career, and life.
Plan Development
Priority areas in the Master Plan include options and actionable plans for a fiscal framework, facilities, access, quality, and universal prekindergarten. These issues are being examined through a series of specific policy-relevant scenarios, determined in consultation with CHHS and other stakeholders, including current proposals for ELC expansion advanced by the Governor or the Legislature. Each policy scenario starts with assumptions about what constitutes high-quality early learning and care, and where incremental subsidies should be applied across the economic spectrum for those who cannot afford access to needed services.
Findings
Five study areas represent the persistent barriers in our current early childhood system: Finance, Facilities, Access, Quality, and Universal Pre-K. California For All Kids surveys existing research and recommendations in each of these areas, fills in gaps and makes recommendations, integrating individual findings into a comprehensive plan. Findings in each study area will be posted at the links below as they are available:
- Finance
- Access
- Facilities
- Quality
- UPK
Contact
For questions and inquiries, please contact MPELC@chhs.ca.gov