Common Sense Kids Action Commends Governor Brown, Senate President de Leon, and Speaker Atkins for Agreeing on a Budget that Makes Significant Progress For Kids and Schools

The California State Budget agreement announced today by Governor Jerry Brown and the leaders of the state legislature will see the state take some common sense strides towards prioritizing our kids and schools.

While it doesn't include everything we wanted, we are pleased to see a significant increase in money going to our schools; the establishment of a state Earned Income Tax Credit; the expansion of Medi-Cal to thousands of low-income undocumented children, and new investments in teacher effectiveness.

We are disappointed that this budget does not provide as much as we hoped for early childhood. We thank Speaker Atkins, Senate President de León, legislators, and early childhood advocates for making this a priority in the budget this year. This setback highlights one of the reasons Common Sense Kids Action created the Right Start Commission last month. We look forward to presenting a plan later this year that our policymakers can embrace to modernize California's early childhood services because every child deserves a fair start in life.