San Francisco’s UPK Mixed Delivery Working Group convening in Fall 2025 brought together child care providers, educators, policymakers and parents and community members to identify gaps and opportunities for better early learning outcomes.
Credit: Ericka Omena Erickson
On a Thursday evening in October, a virtual meeting about early learning in San Francisco captured both the strain and the determination shaping the rollout of universal prekindergarten in California. Preschool administrators logged in after closing classrooms. Family child care educators, who had been on their feet since dawn, joined with toddlers in tow. Parents typed thoughtful comments into the chat while cooking dinner with cameras off. No one had time to be there — and everyone came anyway, understanding what was at stake: the chance to build something better for children and their families.
Fifty-four years ago, the United States came close to a universal early care and education system. That possibility disappeared when President Richard Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act after it had passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan majorities. The act would have created a national network of federally funded, locally administered child development centers, integrating education, nutrition and health services.
Calling it a “long leap into the dark,” Nixon warned of “fiscal irresponsibility, administrative unworkability, and family-weakening implications.” The veto didn’t just kill a bill. It destroyed a blueprint for comprehensive, wraparound support for children and entrenched an ideology that devalued care work. Today, 41% of adults under age 40 cite affordability as a major reason they are unlikely to have children.
As California expands transitional kindergarten (TK) toward a universal prekindergarten (UPK) system, the state has the opportunity to get right what the nation once abandoned, by centering community voice. Unlike in 1971, when Congress debated a federally funded national system, California’s effort is a state-led initiative, built through state investment and authority. Nixon’s veto offers a cautionary tale. If California is to build a truly universal early learning system, it must avoid the pitfalls that undermined the federal effort.
Nixon dismissed the need for universal childcare as unproven. California’s data tell a different story. Only 1 in 9 eligible children receive subsidized child care, leaving 89% without access. Six in 10 families report they cannot find affordable, available care in their ZIP codes; for families of color, that number climbs to 70%.
Nixon claimed that universal child care would undermine families. Ironically, the veto created the crisis families face today. Working families piece together care across multiple programs, often at crushing cost and stress. California must expand choice through user-friendly enrollment systems that allow families to see and compare options easily. Families should help design those systems, and the state must fund resource and referral agencies to provide trusted guidance.
Nixon warned of administrative complexity, but the veto created exactly that. Today, California’s early childhood landscape is administered across multiple agencies with inconsistent regulations and overlapping compliance requirements. California needs alignment across agencies, coordinated and reliable funding, and streamlined compliance so that family child care homes and community-based programs can partner with school districts to close care gaps rather than compete with them.
Nixon questioned whether enough qualified staff existed. But the workforce is already here. California’s universal prekindergarten effort must elevate the full early learning ecosystem: school districts, center-based programs and family child care homes. These essential providers offer infant and toddler care, flexible schedules, cultural and linguistic alignment, and individualized environments that support neurodivergent children.
Nixon balked at the program’s costs. But the decades of underinvestment have generated deeper costs: low wages, high turnover and inconsistent quality. California must fund competitive compensation, benefits and stable contracts so that early childhood educators can at least achieve pay parity with K-12 educators. But parity is only the floor. Once we’ve closed the gap between early childhood education and K-12, California must confront a larger truth: Educators at all levels remain undervalued.
California now stands at a crossroads that the nation abandoned in 1971. To get universal preschool right, the state must commit to user-friendly enrollment, family-centered design with navigation support, a strong mixed-delivery system, and meaningful workforce investment.
Some will argue that supporting the early learning sector broadly risks diverting resources from transitional kindergarten. The real cost question isn’t whether California can afford to invest — families are already paying the price or going without care altogether. Moreover, recent reporting shows that when public investment flows primarily to school-based programs, community providers can be destabilized, contributing to closures and fewer options for families. Directing a portion of existing early learning funds to support community-based, home-based, and family, friend, and neighbor care would not weaken transitional kindergarten; it would protect the entire system and make California’s universal prekindergarten investment sustainable.
As California builds its universal early learning system, the path forward is clear: Learn from Nixon’s veto — and reverse it.
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Amie Latterman and Savitha Moorthy served as co-chairs for the San Francisco Childcare Planning & Advisory Council’s planning committee for mixed delivery of universal prekindergarten for the last year and a half. Amie Latterman is a longtime advocate and community leader in the San Francisco Bay Area. Savitha Moorthy is a teacher, researcher and nonprofit leader with extensive experience in early childhood education.
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