Early Edge Resources

Early Edge California’s 2025 Policy Agenda: Progress and Accomplishments

November 13, 2025

Early Edge is proud to have advanced our 2025 policy agenda to improve the quality, accessibility, and equity of Early Learning and Care programs across California. Through our advocacy and in collaboration with partner organizations, we’ve advanced change around the following priority actions from this year’s agenda:

BIRTH TO THREE (B-3) CHILD CARE

1) Increase access to child care spaces by ensuring that the Governor’s commitment to fund 206,800 subsidized child care spaces by 2028 is fulfilled, with a priority given to infant and toddler care.

• Despite a challenging state budget and bleak outlook, our advocacy helped preserve the commitment made in 2021 to fund an additional 200,000 subsidized child care and preschool slots by 2026–27, ensuring the promise remains intact and preventing any regression in expanding access.

2) Support student parents with young children.

• Our sponsored bill, Senate Bill 271, was signed into law to support student parents with young children in accessing child care resources on and near campus.

3) Support efforts to increase and retain the availability of infant and toddler caregivers and educators.

• Our sponsored bill, Assembly Bill 753, was signed into law and will open new pathways for aspiring early childhood educators to earn their Associate Teacher Permit while gaining hands-on classroom experience.

UNIVERSAL PREKINDERGARTEN (UPK) IMPLEMENTATION

4) Reach full implementation of Transitional Kindergarten (TK).

• We successfully advocated for $2.1 billion to fund the final year of Universal TK implementation statewide.

5) Provide funding to lower TK classroom ratios to 10:1 as committed in the 2025-26 State Budget.

• $1.2 billion in ongoing funding to support lower ratios of 10:1 student-to-staff in TK classrooms and promote more individualized and developmentally appropriate learning.

WORKFORCE COMPENSATION, SUPPORTS & PATHWAYS

6) Advance reimbursement rate reform by implementing and funding the new reimbursement rate structure to ensure all providers, including license-exempt, receive rates reflecting the true cost of providing care, including livable wages, benefits, and professional development.

• Secured commitment from the Administration and Legislature to develop a true cost-of-care methodology and funding to provide advanced reimbursement to providers based on enrollment instead of attendance.

7) Support the adoption and implementation of new Child Development Permit recommendations, including the multilingual and infant/toddler specializations.

• We supported Assembly Bill 1123, signed into law, which expands the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to include two new voting members representing early childhood education.

DUAL LANGUAGE LEARNERS (DLLs)

8) Expand availability of ELC bilingual programs offering biliteracy pathways and bilingual educators from birth and beyond.

• Our Executive Director, Patricia Lozano, was appointed to the Statewide English Learner (EL) Roadmap Implementation Planning Advisory Committee, created by Assembly Bill 2074, which we supported last year, to provide guidance and direction on the development of a statewide implementation plan for the EL Roadmap Policy.

9) Provide educators with access to dedicated DLL-focused professional development.

• $200 million to implement Assembly Bill 1454, a bill we supported, which was signed into law, to enhance literacy, professional development, instructional materials, and support for biliteracy and multilingual learners.

10) Establish a process and allocate dedicated funding to identify and support multilingual children in TK settings.

• Building on the passage of our sponsored legislation AB 2268, which exempts TK students from the ELPAC, we secured $10 million in one-time Proposition 98 funding for the state to identify and implement a developmentally appropriate English language screener to identify and support MLs in TK classrooms.