The Brief

The past few years, California has been all about the ABCs, 1-2-3s and the wheels on the bus, investing more than $5 billion in early childhood education.

But kindergarten, a staple of elementary schools for more than a century, remains optional. Despite nearly a half dozen legislative attempts to require it, California is one of 32 states that doesn’t mandate that all 5-year-olds attend school.

That might change next year. Legislators plan to introduce a new bill to require kindergarten and they’re confident that it will meet a better fate than its predecessors, which either died in committee or were vetoed, largely due to the cost.

“Kids need to be around other kids, they need to be learning. It matters,” said Patricia Lozano, executive director of Early Edge California, which advocates for early childhood education. “I don’t see why California can’t make this happen.”

The data, advocates say, is clear. Children who attend kindergarten have higher test scores in math and reading in third grade and beyond and higher high school graduation rates. They’re also less likely to be suspended or drop out later in their school careers.

Why some parents opt out

While California requires all school districts to offer kindergarten, it doesn’t require families to enroll their children. Most do, but about 5% a year opt out. The reasons vary: some families believe their children aren’t ready for the rigors of school, and others are happy with their children’s current arrangement, whether it’s a preschool, day care or staying home with family.

Latino families are the least likely to send their children to kindergarten, data shows. Lozano said there’s a variety of reasons for this: they either don’t know about it due to a language barrier; they’re afraid to register their children in school due to immigration concerns; parents are working so hard they’ve missed notices from the school district; or some combination of all three. Regardless, schools need to improve their outreach to that community, she said.

Cecelia Kiss, a bilingual kindergarten teacher in the Sacramento City Unified School District, said she recently had a student whose mother was deported, and the child was unable to attend school because there was no one available to drive her. Even though the child loved school and the family placed a high value on education, it was logistically impossible to get the child to school. It took several weeks for the school and family to make transportation arrangements.

“For Latinos, education is so important. We want to give our kids the best we can,” said Kiss, who is also the parent of a kindergartner. “But sometimes we can’t do everything. We rely on kind teachers to care for our children, to help them learn, to help them be prepared for first grade.”

State Sen. Susan Rubio said that the fact that kindergarten isn’t mandatory discourages already disadvantaged families from enrolling their children. In her experience, Latino families have tremendous respect for the public school system and if the system tells them kindergarten is optional, and therefore not a priority, “they listen to that.”

That’s why she’s proposed two previous bills to make kindergarten mandatory. The state should be unequivocal in its message to families that early childhood education is essential for students’ success in school and life, she said. The state’s already rolled out transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds, expanded state-funded preschool and added more slots to its subsidized child care program. Bolstering kindergarten should be next, she said.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond agrees. He said this month that making kindergarten mandatory is a legislative priority for 2026, and he pledged to support any bill that addresses it. Several legislators said they’d consider sponsoring one.

‘Not an urgent need’

Both of Rubio’s previous kindergarten bills died – one in the Senate Appropriations Committee and another when Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it. In his veto note, he said he supports early education generally but the state hadn’t budgeted the cost, estimated to be $268 million annually.

“While the author's intent is laudable … it is important to remain disciplined when it comes to spending, particularly spending that is ongoing,” Newsom wrote.

Plenty of groups supported the bills, including the California Teachers Association — the state’s largest teachers union — and a slew of school districts. But it had a few opponents, namely the Homeschool Association of California. The group’s opposition was not based on the merits of kindergarten itself, but on the state’s ability to strip rights from parents.

“Most kids are already going to kindergarten. But some parents have good reasons for keeping their kids at home,” said Jamie Heston, a member of the group’s board. “Parents want the choice to decide what’s best for their individual child.”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association hasn’t taken a position on the issue, but generally opposes new initiatives that cost money -- including mandatory kindergarten. That stance isn’t likely to change if a kindergarten bill resurfaces, the group’s vice president Susan Shelley said this week.

“From a budgetary point of view, there’s a lot of pressure this year to keep spending under control,” Shelley said. “This would not be a one-time cost. It would be ongoing. And there’s not an urgent need to expand kindergarten, compared to other more pressing needs facing the state right now.”

Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley who studies early childhood education, said the Legislature should focus on more pressing needs facing the under-6 crowd. Those include how the rollout of transitional kindergarten has led to the closure of many preschools, leaving many 3-year-olds without a place to go. Also, Head Start is struggling with funding and other obstacles imposed by the Trump administration, including attempts to bar families who are not citizens. And even though California has expanded access to state-funded preschool, not enough families know they’re eligible.

“Not that many families opt out of kindergarten, so it’s not a huge need,” Fuller said. “There are more immediate concerns.”

Learning gaps among students

Still, Rubio is confident that a kindergarten bill has a good chance of passing this year, largely because the Legislature has seen a significant turnover since it last voted on a kindergarten bill in 2024. Twenty-seven new senators and Assembly members were elected last fall.

For Rubio, whose parents immigrated from Mexico, the issue is personal. Although she did well in school, her twin brother did not. At an early age, he was wrongly placed in special education, fell behind and struggled throughout his time in school, eventually dropping out. Rubio believes he would have fared better if he had a high-quality early childhood education.

She’s also an elementary school teacher who’s seen the gap between students who’ve been to preschool, TK and kindergarten, versus those who had never enrolled in school at all until first grade. Children who’ve been to kindergarten know how to hold a pencil, write their names, count to 20, take turns and maybe even read or do basic math, she said. Those who haven’t lag far behind their peers and some never catch up, she said.

“I have very vivid memories of my students just breaking down crying at the end of the year because they couldn't do a test. They didn't know the answers, and that's so heartbreaking to see,” said Rubio, who’s on leave from her job teaching at Monrovia Unified in Los Angeles County. “It’s hard on them, and it’s hard on the teachers because those children need a lot of extra help.”

Lozano said she thinks the bill will pass eventually. The initiative would cost money, but the state would save money in the long run if more students succeeded in school and graduated.

“It took us 20 years to get TK. It takes time to change minds, change policies,” Lozano said. “There are so many benefits to kindergarten, especially for the kids who need it the most. We believe the benefits outweigh the costs.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for many young families, especially in pricey California. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he plans to make housing affordable again by cutting deep-pocketed investors out of the single-family home market.

“I am immediately taking steps to ban large, institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it,” Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social. “People live in homes, not corporations.”

But in California, housing policy experts say Trump’s strategy might not move the needle on affordability much. That’s because institutional investors aren’t buying many single-family homes in the Golden State to begin with.

“It's kind of a red herring,” said Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. “Institutional ownership of single-family rentals is a very small share of all single-family rentals, let alone all of the housing stock in the United States.”

Less than 3% of CA homes 

Trump’s idea is not new. Democratic California lawmakers have also proposed limits on investor home-buying. To inform the legislative process, state researchers have looked into the question of how California homes are getting scooped up by institutional buyers.

The answer: Not many.

Statewide, 2.8% of single-family homes are owned by investors who own 10 properties or more. That’s according to the California Research Bureau, which produces nonpartisan policy research for the Governor’s Office and the state Legislature.

According to the Urban Institute, large investors own a much greater stock of single-family homes in cities including Jacksonville, Charlotte and Atlanta, where institutional investors own nearly 29% of single-family rentals.

Corporate ownership rates are much lower in California. In Los Angeles County, home to more than 10 million people, only about 72,474 homes are owned by large investors, according to the California Research Bureau. That number includes single-family homes as well as condos, townhomes and duplexes.

Would banning corporate owners reduce competition?

Invitation Homes is the largest owner of single-family homes in California, with more than 11,000 properties to its name statewide, including about 3,100 in Los Angeles County. Its business model involves buying single-family homes, updating them and then renting them out to tenants who may not otherwise be able to afford home-ownership.

LAist reached out to Invitation Homes for comment on Trump’s announcement. We were sent a statement from the National Rental Home Council.

“Housing affordability is a critical issue, and we appreciate the administration’s focus on ensuring Americans have access to a diverse mix of housing options,” the statement read.

The statement continued: “Professional single-family housing providers represent a small segment of the overall housing market, and the single-family rental industry remains focused on supporting renters while also supporting pathways to homeownership.”

David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, said getting rid of institutional investors probably wouldn’t do much to bring down home prices for young Californians.

“The vast, vast majority of homes that are purchased are by people who are generally going to live in them,” Garcia said. “So you're not really reducing the main competition for home buyers, which is other home buyers.”

Lack of supply, lots of demand fuel CA’s high prices

Garcia and USC’s Green both said California’s home prices are high because of lack of supply. Steady demand for California homes coupled with low building rates since the Great Recession have produced a market where the wealthiest buyers out-bid everyone else for the few homes coming up for sale.

Trump’s proposal echoes similar policy explorations from the L.A. City Council, which voted in 2021 to consider banning companies like Zillow and Redfin from buying homes within the city.

Details were scant in Trump’s post, but he said more information about his plans would be forthcoming.

In his Truth Social post, he said: “I will discuss this topic, including further Housing and Affordability proposals, and more, at my speech in Davos in two weeks.”

A coalition of housed and unhoused residents in West L.A. is asking a court to stop the city of Los Angeles from moving ahead with a pilot program that allows local officials to remove and dismantle more recreational vehicles the city deems a nuisance.

The move from the CD11 Coalition for Human Rights comes in response to a new state law that gives L.A. County the authority to dispose of abandoned or inoperable RVs worth up to $4,000, a major increase from the previous $500 threshold.

Assembly Bill 630 went into effect Jan. 1.

In its petition for a writ of mandate from the Superior Court, the coalition argues the law gives that authority only to the county of Los Angeles — not the city. Members of the coalition claim the city is “recklessly charging ahead” with a program it’s not authorized to execute.

“The city’s actions are illegal and will harm vulnerable Angelenos who live in these RVs, while unlawfully wasting taxpayer resources on activities that exceed the city’s authority,” court documents state.

Some city officials who support the new law say L.A. must have the tools to get unsafe and unsanitary RVs off the streets for good.

There are more than 3,100 RVs parked across the city of L.A. being used as improved housing, according to last year’s homeless count estimates from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“These vehicles create unacceptable health, environmental, and safety risks, putting entire neighborhoods, critical infrastructure, and sensitive environmental areas at risk,” Councilmember Traci Park said in a statement. “Residents want solutions, not ideological wars, delay tactics, and frivolous lawsuits.”

LAist reached out to other city officials for comment but, so far, they have not responded.

How we got here

Park, who represents communities including Venice and Culver City in District 11, introduced a motion in October instructing various city departments to “immediately implement” expanded RV enforcement, about a week after AB 630 was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

According to the motion, the new law “is one more tool to stop the RV to streets pipeline” and complements the city’s efforts to crack down on “van-lords.”

The L.A. City Council voted to approve the move Dec. 9.

Attorneys for the Coalition for Human Rights, who include some from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, sent a demand letter to L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto on Dec. 18 explaining its arguments.

“The City’s planned implementation of AB 630 is illegal,” attorneys wrote in the letter, which also argued the city would be “liable for any damages for property if illegally removed, withheld, or destroyed.”

The letter gave L.A. officials until Dec. 29 to confirm that the city would not implement the new law.

City officials did not respond, according to Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Unhoused People's Justice Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

The coalition is now asking a judge to resolve the dispute.

“The city of Los Angeles and the City Council in its rush to criminalize homelessness, you know, rushed past the plain language of the statute and instructed city employees effectively to violate the law,” Myers told LAist. “That kind of rushing to criminalize homelessness is the type of action that leads to bad policy making, but it also leads to lawsuits.”

Myers said legal matters like this don’t help get people off the street, but they’re necessary when the city refuses to obey the law and to respect the rights of people experiencing homelessness.

What officials say

L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not immediately respond to LAist’s requests for comment on the writ or demand letter.

Mayor Karen Bass proposed AB 630 in partnership with Assemblymember Mark González, who introduced the California assembly bill. According to González’s office, the new law aims to boost public safety, address environmental concerns and “complement programs like Mayor Bass' Inside Safe initiative.”

Inside Safe is Bass’ flagship homelessness program that aims to move people off the street and into housing.

Bass' office has called AB 630 “landmark legislation.”

“For too long, bad actors have preyed on unhoused Angelenos and families through a cycle of buying and auctioning off broken down, inoperable RVs that are dangerous for those inhabiting them and for surrounding areas — they catch on fire and can become death traps, not the type of RVs safe to be used for housing,” representatives from Bass' office previously said in a statement to LAist.

Representatives from González’s office didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment on the writ.

LAist has also reached out to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, whose office is involved with coordinating the removal of RVs from L.A. streets. Szabo did not immediately respond.

The Eaton Fire destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, where over 400 families would gather to worship and which has served as a Jewish community space for over 100 years.

On the anniversary of the fire Wednesday, Josh Ratner, the senior rabbi at the temple, told LAist’s AirTalk program that the congregation has been gathering at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.

“ It has certainly been a unique challenge," he said, "in a sense of us going through a double crisis, a double tragedy of the loss of our building, which has meant so much to so many of our congregants, and the loss of so many congregants’ homes.”

Thirty families of the congregation lost their homes, while another 40 families have had to relocate.

As the fire raged, Cantor Ruth Berman Harris raced to save all 13 sacred Torah scrolls, pieces of parchment with Hebrew text used at services, including Shabbat. The scrolls are now being stored at the Huntington Library in San Marino.

Everything else in the temple was lost in the fire.

In 2019, UCLA acquired temple records, including newsletters, yearbooks, board minutes, membership directories, financial reports, booklets, photographs and video and audio recordings. Community members can access that information, tracing Pasadena’s Jewish history from the 1930s to present day.

Ratner said that since the fire, he has leaned into what led him to becoming a rabbi — “the ability to provide pastoral care and love” as the congregation has grappled with losing their spiritual home.

“ The Jewish tradition and Jewish history is we're no strangers to crisis and to dislocation and to exile," Ratner said. "So there are a lot of themes from the Bible itself and the idea of the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness before reaching the promised land and living in that sense of dislocation and impermanence.”

From ancient times to the recent past, he went on, temples are destroyed and Jewish people are persecuted and forced to relocate.

 ”We have overcome so much before as a people. I think that that gives us some firm foundation to know that we can recover from this as well,” he said. “And not just recover, but really our histories of people is one of rebuilding even stronger than before. Each time there's been a crisis, we've been able to reinvent different aspects of Judaism and to evolve.”

Correspondent Adolfo Guzman-Lopez contributed to this report.