A bill that would have required all California families to enroll their children in kindergarten was rejected by the state Legislature on Thursday, the latest of several failed attempts over the years to make the grade compulsory.

The legislation, AB 2226, aimed to mandate the state’s youngest students attend kindergarten before being admitted to the first grade. According to the California Department of Education, 95% of students already attend kindergarten, though it is not required.

Instead, students are required to attend school when they turn 6 years old — and it’s up to families if they start in kindergarten or go straight to first grade.

More than 14,000 California students skipped kindergarten in the 2022-23 school year, the Department of Education estimates.

Proponents of the bill, including the Los Angeles Unified School District and the California Teachers Assn., pointed to research that shows early education is crucial to a student’s long-term education, noting that kindergarten is mandatory in 19 states and D.C.

Data from the Los Angeles Unified School District show that children who attend kindergarten do better on assessments later in elementary school.

The bill had no official opposition but was killed without debate in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday during a fast-paced fiscal hearing where hundreds of bills were approved or rejected based on their price tag.

According to a legislative analysis of the bill, it could result in “significant” costs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The lens we were looking through was the cost. Anything that we pass and the governor signs means it’s probably something that has to come out of the budget next year,” Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Salinas), who chairs the appropriations committee and voted for AB 2226 earlier this year, said following Thursday’s hearing in Sacramento.

California faces a $46.8-billion budget deficit, and Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers have already made billions in cuts to blunt the problem.

Despite its lack of organized opposition, efforts to force kindergarten have failed before.

Newsom — an early education advocate — vetoed a similar bill in 2022, calling the effort “laudable” but saying the costs were not accounted for in the state’s budget. Former Gov. Jerry Brown before him also vetoed the proposal, arguing that the comparatively small amount of families who forgo kindergarten should have the freedom to choose what’s best for them.

Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) authored AB 2226 and said that kindergarten is “an essential component” of education that “builds the foundation” for skills such as literacy and socialization.

He cited data from the California Research Bureau that show that Latino children are the least likely to enroll in kindergarten, raising questions about equity.

“I was disappointed but not surprised,” Muratsuchi said following Thursday’s hearing. “I think more than anything its a reflection of our current budget deficit, but the data is clear and we need to make sure we close the kindergarten gap. We’re definitely not giving up.”

Former President Trump took a swing at Vice President Harris’s recently debuted economic plan, saying the Democratic presidential nominee had gone “full communist.”

“In her speech yesterday, Kamala went full communist. You heard that? She went full communist,” Trump told supporters during a spirited swing-state rally Saturday at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre Township, Pennsylvania.

Calling her “Comrade Kamala,” the Republican presidential nominee blasted her “socialist price controls.”

“Comrade Kamala announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls. You saw that? Never worked before,” he said. “This is the [President Nicolás] Maduro plan in Venezuela [of government price controls], the Maduro plan of the old Soviet Union.

“They tried it there,” he said. “And how did the Soviet Union turn out?”

TRUMP ACCUSES HARRIS OF ‘SOVIET STYLE’ POLICIES FOLLOWING PRICE CONTROL PROPOSAL

Trump said Harris’ plan for federal price controls, which her campaign packaged as a solution to “price gouging,” “excessive prices” and “excessive corporate profits,” will lead to rationing and skyrocketing prices.

TRUMP ACCUSES HARRIS OF ‘SOVIET STYLE’ POLICIES FOLLOWING PRICE CONTROL PROPOSAL

“It will cause rationing, hunger and skyrocketing prices,” Trump said. “Just like [the Biden-Harris administration’s] Inflation Reduction Act, which is one of the great scams of all time. Inflation has been so bad, it’s gone up much more than 50%. They say 30%, 40% — many more people are being devastated.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris wave to supporters during a campaign rally last week in Las Vegas. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

On Wednesday, Harris announced that, as president, she would institute a federal price-fixing plan “on food and groceries” in an attempt to stop “big corporations” from taking advantage of consumers.

Harris has framed her economic road map, dubbed “Kamalanomics” by social media pundits, as an “opportunity economy” plan. Her price control plan includes expanded down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers and a $6,000 child tax credit for first-time parents.

Former President Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, speaks during a campaign rally at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Saturday. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Trump said Harris’ economic policy will not work, saying that similar price fixing has been tried — unsuccessfully — by other countries throughout history.

“The things that she said yesterday don’t work. They have never worked,” he said. “They’ve been used by many countries, and in every single event, it ruined those countries.”

RUBBER-STAMPED’: KEY DEM HIT OVER BIDEN-HARRIS SUPPORT ON BORDER, INFLATION

He said Harris is promising “things she can’t deliver.”

“It’s a communist system. … She’s promising to hand out things she can’t deliver. She’ll never get them approved,” he said. “Just like when she and Crooked Joe tried to give away student debt. How did that work out? Not too good.”

Vice President Harris unveiled her economic plan Friday in North Carolina. (Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Trump turned his attention to young voters who looked favorably at Biden’s promise to eliminate student debt, saying a communist takeover may sound good politically but is “very dangerous.”

“The students are saying, ‘I love him because of student debt,’ but he got rejected,” Trump said. “Her plan is very dangerous because it may sound good politically, and that’s the problem. … This is Marxist, this is fascist.”

The Supreme Court said Friday it has turned down an appeal from the Biden administration and refused to lift court orders in 26 conservative states that blocked new Education Department rules extending antidiscrimination protections to transgender students.

The vote was 5 to 4.

The decision means the federal education law known as Title IX will forbid schools and colleges in half of the nation from discriminating against students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, but not in the other half.

Last month, Solicitor Gen. Elizabeth Prelogar urged the court to allow the rules to take effect nationwide except for disputed provisions, including one requiring that schools permit transgender students to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity.

But in an unsigned order, the court denied her appeal Friday.

The justices in the majority said they saw no reason to set aside the lower court rulings and decide on a temporary basis that the rule may take effect nationwide as lawsuits continue.

Conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined in dissent with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. They said the lower courts erred in blocking the antidiscrimination rules from taking effect in all the states.

The new rules enforcing Title IX had been scheduled to take effect nationwide Aug. 1.

The 1972 law said schools and colleges receiving federal funds may not discriminate “on the basis of sex.” The new rules, issued in late April, define that term to prohibit “discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

The administration relied on the high court’s ruling four years ago, which was written by Gorsuch and said the federal civil rights law that forbids job discrimination based on sex also protects transgender employees.

The new rules do not apply to school sports and athletic competitions. The Education Department said it will consider those issues in a separate regulation.

The provision of the new rules that has caused the most dispute says a school is deemed to discriminate on the basis of sex if it prohibits students from using a restroom or locker room that is consistent with their gender identity.

Republican state attorneys went to court seeking to block the rules from taking effect.

Louisiana Atty. Gen. Elizabeth Murrill said the administration had taken “Title IX and its promise of equal educational opportunities for both sexes and transformed it into a 423-page mandate that (among other things) allows boys in girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and hotel rooms and requires teachers and students to use a person’s preferred pronouns.”

She sued and won a court order from a federal judge that blocked the new rules from taking effect in her state and three others.

“The text of Title IX shows it was intended to prevent biological women from being discriminated against in education in favor of biological men,” said U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in Monroe, La. He said the Education Department did not have the authority to redefine the law to apply more broadly.

In all, six federal judges have blocked the new rules in 26 states. Three U.S. appeals courts have upheld those preliminary orders.

The new antidiscrimination rules will be in effect in California and the other blue states. Earlier, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and his counterparts in 14 other Democratic states had urged the Louisiana judge to uphold the broader antidiscrimination rules.

The Supreme Court has so far refused to rule directly on the issue. However, the justices have agreed to decide in their next term whether states may bar the use of hormones and other gender-affirming care for transgender teens.

Republicans and Democrats have been divided for a decade on whether to extend antidiscrimination rules to transgender students.

The Trump administration refused to expand the discrimination rules under Title IX, but President Biden pledged to do so upon taking office.

He issued an executive order in March 2021 “guaranteeing an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation or gender identity.” He said the Education Department should issue new Title IX rules “as soon as practicable.”

But it took until April this year for final rules to be issued.

In May, former President Trump said he would repeal them if he were elected again.

“We’re going to end it on Day One,” Trump said on a talk radio show. “Don’t forget, that was done as an order from the president. That came down as an executive order. And we’re going to change it — on Day One it’s going to be changed.”