Political Quotes

“In California we spend about $4,200 per year to keep a child in school. We spend $32,000 to keep a youth the same age locked up in a youth facility if he or she has committed a crime. When we consider that 80 percent of all the prisoners in our jails and prisons are school dropouts, it becomes very, very easy to understand why we want to have programs like Head Start, and then have the transition programs once the child is no longer in Head Start but has moved on to school. What we want to try to do is provide this child not just with the initial step to help any child who may be at risk with the opportunity to really learn and be productive once he or she becomes an adult, but really, once they are in school, to provide them with the assistance and that support that explains to them in very graphic terms that we are not going to let them fall between the cracks. We do not want them to become part of the 80 percent that goes on to or is in prison. We also do not want them to become part of those that are costing us, as taxpayers, $32,000 per year to keep them behind bars. We have to do some things and we have to do them early so they do not cost us that much.”