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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > January > 04
Monday, January 4, 2010
Editorial: Phase-in best bet for all-day kindergarten
Kindergarten is the new first grade.
The days when 5-year-olds warmed up for school with half-days spent simply learning to follow rules and to play well with others are over.
Today, half-days are not enough for kindergarten teachers to get kids ready to hit the ground running in first grade. A full-day kindergarten requirement coming next year is good policy for Ohio.
But the state should rethink its plan for quick implementation.
Moving too fast will be too expensive for some school districts.
Education is a key component of Gov. Ted Strickland’s economic development strategy. He wants to push more kids toward college, improve the quality of college programs and spend more on university research with the hope of reshaping Ohio’s image and its attractiveness to employers.
The governor smartly recognizes that that strategy cannot focus just on the top of the education pyramid. That’s why he wants to mandate that school districts offer full-day kindergarten.
About half the states already make full-day kindergarten available to all kids. In fact, some are going so far as to offer state-supported pre-school. There’s a growing body of research suggesting that quality early education can dramatically improve children’s success in school and even later on.
Critics of mandated full-day kindergarten argue that most wealthy, suburban districts don’t need it. The numbers dispute that claim.
Consider some of Dayton’s best known suburban districts: Kettering, Northmont, Vandalia, Centerville, Sugarcreek and Miamisburg.
On a state kindergarten readiness test, at least 10 percent of students in each of those districts scored at the lowest level, suggesting they will need extra help. For most of those districts, the number needing help is more like one in seven incoming kindergartners.
This shouldn’t be surprising considering that poor children are typically less likely to be ready to start school; even suburban districts have kids living in poverty.
Only Centerville has very low poverty (5 percent) among that group. The rest range from 12 percent (Sugarcreek) to 35 percent (Kettering).
Kids in nearly every Ohio district will benefit from full-day kindergarten.
But it will be expensive. A survey of school districts found full-day kindergarten could require building 1,000 new classrooms statewide and hiring about one new teacher for each.
Kettering, for example, estimates that switching to full-day programs could cost $1.3 million. Statewide, the estimate is about $127 million in new operating costs and $78.3 million for added classroom space.
Ohio cannot hit struggling districts with big costs all at once, in the midst of a deep recession.
The kindergarten requirement is set to kick in for next fall, but the Ohio Department of Education may offer waivers to delay implementation for a year, or perhaps two. That’s a good idea. But even this dispensation may not solve the problem.
Instead, Ohio should allow all-day kindergarten to be phased in over several years for those facing the highest costs. Districts can manage the new expense if it’s phased in.
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