I am a huge supporter of Jerry Brown's effort to continue California's GHG cap and trade program. I oppose Jerry Brown's use of this revenue to pay for his pet Bullet Train. If this program generates a billion dollars in revenue per year and if high quality early education (pre-K) costs $10,000 per child per year, then an alternative use of this money is to pay for 100,000 disadvantaged 3 to 6 year old California kids to receive free pre-K.
There are 40 million people in the state and 13% of us are ages 0-9. So, assuming a uniform age distribution then 40 million *.13*.33 = 1.716 million Californians are ages 3 to 6.
The poverty rate in the United States is 13%. So, if I multiply .13*1.716 = 223,000.
This arithmetic suggests that there are 223,000 California living below the poverty line who are ages 3 to 6. If my proposal provides free pre-K for 100,000 of them; then we just expanded coverage to 100,000/223000 = 45% coverage.
Not bad!
Note how I have linked fighting climate change to James Heckman's agenda.