Friday, November 27, 2009

 

The Columbus Dispatch editorial

 

 

Four months ago, The Dispatch opined that the state budget’s mandate for all-day kindergarten next school year is ill-defined and too expensive for many school districts. Since then, little has changed except that the State Board of Education has gotten into a squabble over the issue.

 

School districts still will receive no more state money next year than this year, and additional classrooms won’t appear out of thin air.

 

The mandate should be reconsidered in light of the budget crunch facing all Ohio government entities. A bill put forth by four Republican state senators, including Gary Cates of the Cincinnati area, would give some breathing room by postponing the kindergarten mandate for two years, to July 1, 2012. That would be helpful, but lawmakers should consider entirely rethinking the issue.

 

All-day kindergarten can be effective in helping poor children, who often start school unprepared and behind the curve, to catch up on basic reading and other learning fundamentals. Some families in which both parents work appreciate the stability of having their children in school all day instead of shuttling from a half-day kindergarten to a day-care program.

 

But, for children fortunate enough to attend preschools and who have books and involved parents at home, research suggests that a full day of kindergarten doesn’t provide much more benefit than a half day.

 

Since Gov. Ted Strickland sold his education plan as evidence-based, it makes sense that a kindergarten mandate be imposed only where the evidence says it will be effective.

 

A year when the state is struggling to maintain just level funding is not the right time to force schools to embark on an expensive new program that, for some districts, won’t be useful.

 

Strickland, who proposed the mandate, has promised a waiver option, under which districts can make the case to be excused from the mandate. But his Department of Education has yet to specify the criteria for a waiver.

 

If waivers are too easy to get, the mandate will be meaningless. If they’re too hard to get, Ohio school districts will suffer even greater cuts, to free up money for expanded kindergarten programs.

 

Meanwhile, the State Board of Education, which is supposed to provide policy guidance to the department and the governor but often is ineffective, has muddied the issue.

 

Earlier this month, board members voted 15-1 to support the Cates bill, despite the fact that the board endorsed Strickland’s education recommendations in May. As the Cates bill does only two things — postponing the effective dates of the kindergarten mandate and one other school-related provision of the budget — a vote supporting it can be interpreted only as a statement that the all-day-kindergarten mandate should be postponed.

 

But when Strickland’s office questioned board President Deborah Cain about the vote, she unilaterally wrote a letter to legislators, saying the board still supports all-day kindergarten. That apparent backpedal has rankled some board members and further confused a contentious issue.

 

Lawmakers should start over, first examining the premises of the mandate, then, if it is needed, figuring out how to pay for it.