“In Gavin Newsom, California finally has a governor who gets the need for high quality, accessible early childhood education and care. His budget makes a down payment of nearly $2 billion addressing the early years. And yet a recent poll conducted by the Policy Analysis for California Education and the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education shows that California voters rank early childhood spending below other educational priorities,” Heising-Simons Foundation Board Chair and co-founder Liz Simons writes in an Op-Ed for CalMatters this week.

“Why the disconnect?

One reason, some experts believe, could be that the sheer number of people with direct interest in K-12 and higher education outweigh the demographically smaller population of families with children ages 5 and younger.

But what about the sheer numbers of women who are, or have been, or may someday be, mothers? How many women have to sacrifice their careers, their dreams, their livelihoods because their young children have no affordable quality early childcare or preschool options?”

Read the full OpEd at CalMatters.