The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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January 22, 2007

Our View — Close the gap — fund all-day kindergarten

Mankato Area Public Schools switched to all-day kindergarten throughout all of the district’s elementary schools this fall.

And kindergarten teachers who just made the change don’t ever want to go back. Some have said their students are growing academically and socially beyond what any daily two-hour block of time could begin to offer.

Mountains of research point to the benefits of offering all-day kindergarten, especially for disadvantaged children. But unless more state funding comes through to support all-day kindergarten, the possibility that Mankato could lose its full-day kindergarten program looms like the scary monster in the closet.

In his State of the State address last week, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said all-day kindergarten is too expensive and doesn’t target the kids who need the most help. Instead, he wants the state to offer help with an early childhood scholarship program to provide up to $4,000 per child for at-risk students to attend a certified kindergarten readiness program of their choice.

It’s a confusing stance to take that leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For one thing, how will the state know who the low-achieving students are until they are in the school system? Although children go through a screening process before starting kindergarten, there is no testing to label children as “low-achieving.” Will there be money to pay someone to identify these at-risk families? Will the families be offered help in transporting these children to the readiness programs? Will the state beef up its support of districts’ Early Childhood/Family Education programs to meet the need of getting these preschoolers prepared for kindergarten? Many ECFE programs, including Mankato’s, have had to make cuts as a result of shrinking state funding.

Rather than dismissing the impact of full-day kindergarten because of its $320 million price tag, the governor should at least examine ways to phase in increased funding. Right now kindergarten students are only funded as .557 of a pupil. Why not have a gradual plan to raise that pupil funding to .657 in 2007-08 and .757 in 2008-09? This would result in a third of the cost and at least give schools that want to offer full-day kindergarten some light at the end of the tunnel that signals that help is on the way.

The governor will present his full two-year budget today, and his address made it clear full-day kindergarten won’t be on his list of priorities for funding. Luckily, it’s only January, and he has plenty of time to reconsider.

The governor often talks about closing the achievement gap and has a list of ideas on how to reform secondary education in Minnesota to achieve that. His ideas, however, are reactive. The research shows the gaps start in a preschool and early grade-school level. If you close them early, everyone wins. If you wait until high school, it will take much more money than the $320 million for all-day kindergarten.

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