Suzanne Cohen, Susan Elliott and Sahar Yarjani Muranovic

Cohen is president of Portland Association of Teachers. Elliott is co-chair of Portland NAACP Education Committee. Muranovic is executive director of the Oregon chapter of National Organization for Women and a David Douglas School District board member

Multnomah County voters will likely get to vote in November 2020 for a big expansion of free public preschool - the single best investment we could make in our children, local economy and future. Providing great preschools is the most effective way to improve our kids’ chances of graduating from high school and earning more, while avoiding unemployment and incarceration.

Done right, preschool is a highly successful, economic development strategy that cuts poverty rates now for parents, and later for their children, as adults. Right away, parents of preschoolers are able to stay in the workforce. A more skilled labor force attracts employers, pushing up wages for all.

The well-documented returns on investment in good universal preschool are three times higher than the best-designed business tax incentives, and which, unlike most such business incentives, successfully encourages the employment and advancement of locals.

Several U.S. cities and states are demonstrating elements of what works well. The strongest programs are staffed by skilled providers earning wages comparable to elementary school teachers, and offering a year-round, play-based, culturally inclusive, universal preschool program.

Advocates working on a ballot measure to make preschool available to all children in Multnomah County should be guided by a few key principles:

Quality preschool depends critically on a stable, skilled workforce sustained by living wages. Right now, preschool teachers in Oregon earn half what kindergarten teachers do, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with annual incomes so low that many receive food stamps. Too many preschool staffers who love the work have to leave it for jobs that support their families. High employee turnover disrupts the stable relationships that help kids thrive.

Small preschool providers are going out of business in Multnomah County, limiting options for families who prefer a smaller or culturally specific setting, or need care for their kids beyond the school day typical of public preschool programs. To keep these preschools alive, our public programs like Oregon’s Preschool Promise must also pay family child care providers as much per child as they do schools and community centers.

Everyone in the classroom – whether in schools, community centers or small preschools - needs to earn significantly more than the minimum wage. In order to retain and promote the labor force, with its existing skills, experience and ethnic diversity, we need to expand professional development options including onsite coaching and workshops accessible to the many child-care workers who are working parents.

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Free, universal preschool builds community and is more cost effective than funding preschool programs only for lower-income families. Too few families can afford preschool. In 2018, the median monthly price for full-time care for Multnomah County preschoolers was $1,077, according to Oregon State University’s latest study of market rates – comparable to monthly rent. Even with the recent passage of the Student Success Act, our public programs like Head Start cannot serve all of the kids in families with incomes below the poverty line - which is just $16,240 a year for a single parent of one child and $24,600 for a family of four.

Universal programs bring us together. All children benefit from preschool, and research shows that kids from lower-income families gain more from universal programs than from programs offered only to the disadvantaged – helping to close the opportunity gap. Universal programs avoid the high administrative costs of income verification, which is also burdensome for families.

Public preschool programs should operate year-round. Kids require consistent care, and most parents and staff members need to work year-round. School year programs leave parents scrambling to find care for their children in the summer, sometimes having to quit the jobs on which their families depend.

The best programs for preparing kids to fare well in kindergarten aren’t overly academic. Rather, they allow kids to explore together and gain confidence. They help children develop self-regulation as well as social, emotional and physical skills. And they introduce kids to more vocabulary and knowledge of the world around them. Kindergarten teachers say age appropriate preschool programs make a huge difference!

A choice of settings lets parents select the kind of preschool that will work best for their families. Offerings should include full and half day programs, in schools, community centers, parent/child classrooms and family child care. That variety provides for different languages, culturally specific programs, and the different schedules that parents increasingly need.

Multnomah County could provide a great universal preschool program that would serve as a model for the rest of Oregon and the country, if we do it right. That would mean a quality, universal, year-round program, provided by early childhood educators earning a living wage, with funding from an inequality-fighting revenue mechanism like a county income tax on the top 5 percent of households.