Despite California’s recent bruising budget battle, the Golden State has some encouraging early learning news. The number of Latino children in preschool rose, and there are good ideas about how to enroll even more students.

The good news is that among Latino families the preschool enrollment rate rose to 58 percent from 54 percent from 2000 to 2005/6 in California, according to The Wealth Research Organization. The bad news is that there was still a gap of 18 percentage points between those families and white families.

Still, the increase is a good step forward.

“Of significance is that improvements occurred across the board by household type, poverty level, educational attainment, ability to speak English, citizenship, employment status, and regions of California. The gains in the Latino community were about twice that of the general population.” – Trends in Childcare and Preschool Enrollment among Latino Children in California

While the report focuses on California, it has excellent ideas to boost Latino preschool enrollment in other states and across the country, including:

• Create family learning centers that focus on parents and their kids, instead of child-focused programs.
• Develop preschool programs based on development “rather than a preventive or remedial type model that assumes Latino children come into preschool with deficiencies.”
• Simplify the application process.
• Develop one database for preschool supply and quality.

Researchers also suggested preschool is an excellent opportunity to engage and help Latino parents.

“In our educational system it is critical that parents are engaged in their children’s education and preschool is perhaps the best time to engage Latino parents in school. There could be two goals for the preschool programs. One is to make sure that children are ready for kindergarten, but also that parents understand how to navigate the educational system.”

California Budget Cut Update: I promised to update you about how California’s budget cuts will impact early learning, and while I’m a little late here is a Child Care Law Center memo on the topic.

(Thanks Preschool California for getting the memo out there.)