Why "Preschool for All" matters—for Multnomah County and for Oregon

As its first cohort of children enter preschool, County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson writes about the structure and impact of the innovative early learning program in Multnomah County.

Photo by Yan Krukov

Oregon has a long tradition of innovative and forward-thinking policies and investments. From the Bottle Bill to the Oregon Health Plan, from land use to light rail, from burying a freeway to build a waterfront park to providing public access to our beaches, Oregon has a rightful reputation as a trailblazer for progressive policies.

Preschool for All is a continuation of that tradition, and represents the largest investment the metro area has ever made in children and families. The program, when fully scaled up, will provide free, universal access to preschool for all 3 and 4 year olds in Multnomah County. It will serve between 13,000 and 15,000 children per year, and alleviate a major financial burden for families.

Quality preschool is expensive and in short supply. According to the Economic Policy Institute, child care for a 4-year-old in Oregon costs an average of $10,061 annually, or $838 a month. But child care is often not preschool, where teachers receive more training and spend time on learning objectives. Preschool in the Portland area is often much more expensive - $12,550 per year at Portland Montessori; $16,680 at the Portland Waldorf School. That is well beyond the reach of most families.

Preschools also suffer from high employee turnover, which contributes to the shortage of offerings. Teachers and teacher assistants are often paid less than a living wage, driving many out of the profession.

Preschool for All aims to fix this “trilemma” of high costs, few options, and high teacher turnover by:

• Making the program universally free. This will enable all families to enroll and benefit from this program, which is paid for with a tax on high income households.

• Increasing pay. Our per student slots require and pay for increased teacher and teacher assistant pay. This will help attract, retain, and woo people back to the field of preschool education. We’re also working with local community colleges to expand training opportunities for early learning credentials, so that our workforce is expanding to meet increasing demand.

• Mentoring providers, offering them the tools needed to be future Preschool for All providers. We’re doing this for large and small providers, giving important mom- and pop-owned preschool owners the ability to strengthen and expand their businesses. This approach is rooted in equity, because smaller centers and home-based preschools often provide more diverse offerings, giving families important options that best suit their needs. This approach also helps us address our childcare deserts, vast areas of our county where there’s a lack of nearby preschool options.

• Funding new and expanded facilities, which will be necessary to serve the thousands of children who will be receiving preschool services in the coming years.

Importantly, this program will help employers and make our region more attractive for young workers. This month alone, I spoke to several young people who lamented the high costs of childcare, and the barrier that posed to those interested in having children. “It’s just too expensive,” they said. A universal, free preschool program will help attract employees. It will alleviate a financial burden, and an emotional burden. I know that the quality preschool education my two children received was a huge comfort for me and my husband, knowing they were well cared for and learning while we were at work. It also helped form them into the solid young people they are today. Every family deserves the same.

Perhaps most revolutionary about Preschool for All, however, and the reason I am so proud of this program, is how it centered the experience of parents, and in particular BIPOC parents, in creating the program. Those conversations illuminated the need to maintain and strengthen small providers, because of their diverse offerings and because of the strained experience many parents have with the public school system (many cities have tried to simply expand that K-12 system to include preschool, decimating the child care economy and driving out diverse offerings). Those conversations articulated the necessity of preventing expulsions, which disproportionately impact children of color, and in particular Black boys. Those conversations drove home the need to raise wages for preschool teachers, a profession dominated by women and disproportionately, women of color.

Last month, nearly 700 children began school as the first cohort of Preschool for All students. In the years to come it will serve thousands of children, then tens of thousands, and eventually generations of children and families. It is a monumental investment in our children. It was created the Oregon way, and will live alongside those other pioneering policies that make this state so special.

---

Jessica Vega Pederson is a Multnomah County Commissioner. She previously served as the first Latina member of the Oregon House of Representatives. She lives in east Portland.