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Current Focus of the Cross Cultural Partnership Project
The Partnership focused on three primary areas to introduce its alliance: Miami, Los Angeles and New Jersey. These sites represent areas that have strong NBCDI and NCLR constituencies, dynamically changing African American and Latino communities, as well as legislation of great importance surrounding the issues of quality early care and education.
Miami, Florida
In Miami, the Partnership’s attention was focused on maximizing the unique opportunity that voters were given to profoundly impact Florida’s early care and education programs. In September 2002, Miami-Dade voters increased property taxes to fund the Children’s Trust Initiative by a 2:1 margin. This tax will generate $55 million annually to fund a range of services including childcare for needy children.
Florida’s voters also prioritized early care and education during the state’s general elections on November 5, by passing two key initiatives that appeared on the ballot: Amendment Eight, which urged the creation of universal access for all four-year olds to free, high-quality pre-k services, and Amendment Nine, which commanded class size reduction.
By partnering with the local faith community, a massive citizen education and voter mobilization effort was launched which included the creation and distribution of thousands of informational flyers throughout the community. The flyers, which highlighted the various features of Amendments Eight and Nine, featured a Creole component to engage Miami’s large Haitian community.
The results of the voter mobilization were successful, with both initiatives passing, and members of the taskforce being invited to participate on the mayor’s universal pre-k planning council. The Partnership will continue to track and improve the implementation of the class size reduction and universal pre-k inintiatives.
Miami - Los Angeles - New Jersey State