The convergence of three social factors makes the present particularly auspicious for rethinking child care and early childhood education in California: public recognition that early brain development and environmental factors influence learning and development; greater awareness that child care is necessary for parents to work; and welfare-reform policies that have brought into clear relief the limits of our disjointed,informal system of child care.The passage of Proposition 10, with its emphasis on early childhood development, enhances the prospects that child care and early education programs will be reexamined and integrated in new ways. The State Commission guidelines for a comprehensive and integrated program offer a framework for evaluating existing child care and early education programs and systems and for planning new coordinated and interwoven services
