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This is part of a series of related articles on Kindergarten, policy, and the achievement gap that started out for me at In Practice.
TMAO talks about how poor education quality is turning kids off from school, but in reflecting on kindergarten readiness lately, and how some kids are behind from the start I wanted to look at how some policies in my state, California, maybe making things worse. Even though I’ve blogged about this before (Teachers: are we the problem? | The Blog of Ms. Mercer) I’ve added a lot of new readers, so many of you have missed the fact that school attendance is not mandatory in the Golden State until children are 6 years old.
I bring this up because of an interesting Twitter back and forth. It started with Dan Meyer pointing to an article, Fixing education policy. - By Jim Ryan - Slate Magazine
which has a lot of good points, that I don’t disagree with. But, I pointed out that one recommendation, universally available pre-school was not as pressing to my mind as getting mandatory and full day kindergarten
Lisa Linn thought all day was too long for the little ones (a good point), but was SHOCKED (being a fellow Californian) that kinder was universal, but not mandatory.
In addition we have one of the youngest cut-off ages for kinder (if you will be 5 years old by December 1st, you can start school). So theoretically (who am I kidding, this has happened), a parent could bring her 5 year old into school in September with no previous schooling, and a sixth birthday in November (two months away), and they will be put in first grade. I’m NOT kidding!
In response to Dan’s call that I blog about this, here are some of my arguments for mandatory, all-day kinder, and pushing the birthday cutoff to something more reasonable (like September 30).
A few years ago the state flirted with a ballot measure that would have funded universal pre-school. The thing is without making school attendance mandatory, you are just providing another service that some parents will not take you up on. Rather than “fix” things with universal pre-school, we should be making kinder more accessible, and pre-kindergarten for the late-borns (those between August and December who can now sign up for kinder, but can be too young for the full kinder experience).
Why all day kinder? There are two reasons, the first is we are asking a lot out of the four hours they are currently given, and the lack of synchronization with the rest of the school time schedule can undermine attendance. In Not Your Father’s Kindergarten I pointed out how kinder curriculum has changed to include thing that used to be taught in first grade (letters with sounds, manipulative math, some sight words). Things like scissor handling, non-worksheet centers, and nap-time have been sacrificed. Lisa is right that adding two more hours of the academics would be too much, but what if we extended the day, and added mandated minutes for music/dance/kinesthetics, art, and naps? Why do this?
Well, in Teachers: are we the problem? | The Blog of Ms. Mercer I outline how the difference between the bell times for kinders and their older siblings can cause attendance issues. We have a family experiencing this now. They are new to the neighborhood, mom is on bedrest for the last trimester of her pregnancy, their family car is prone to breakdowns. The older brothers walk kinder sis into class, but if the car is broke, mom cannot walk to pick her up, so she can’t go to school that day. Mom cannot be SARBed (Attendance Board) until the child is six years old. If she was on the same schedule as her brothers, they could take her home. The lack of consequences for poor attendance gets some families in bad habits about attendance. By then, the children are already behind, and facing the stepped up pace, and longer day of first grade.
The state has faced the idea of moving the December 1st cutoff for grade assignment year, after year, and blinked. Parents with kids in those gap months need notification, and those in the know are demanding “pre-kinder” if this takes place. The state was concerned about the cost factor from this (certainly not any better with recent economic trends). This cut-off is probably a hold-over from baby boom times when students were placed in high and low grades (ex. my husband has a 12/23 birthdate and started school in January in low kinder, eventually he was promoted up to the high grade, and was with kids who started in September). Really, they are cutting off their nose to spite their face. My son was in a kinder class where 2/3rd of the students were boys, and 2/3rds were not 5 when school started (in July, it was a Year-Round) and most of these had October and November birthdays. My son with a September 19th birthday was far from the youngest in class. September is a popular birth month (nine months after Christmas/New Years and all that cold weather), so these make up a lot of birthdays in any class.
That’s my case. I can see the arguments against full-day. I really can’t see a reasonable argument against making school mandatory at 5 years old.
8 responses so far ↓
1
Mathew
// Apr 15, 2008 at 9:14 am
There’s a study in LAUSD that full day kindergarten has led to decreased test scores and student achievement in kindergarten. This is possibly due to losing the assistance of a second adult in the room as was done with half day kinder and spreading the same number of TA’s across double the amount of classrooms.
However, I suspect it is because the same curriculum has often been spread across six hours instead of three leading to less efficiency rather than additional instruction. I like your idea of having some fundamentally different type of instruction in the afternoon (like art and music) but I believe we do have to have a plan in place for what we’re going to do during the day…just increasing the number of hours doesn’t seem to work.
2
MathChique
// Apr 15, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I was also surprised to learn that kindergarten is still not required in California.
I have recently researched the topic in California Ed. Code.
The changing day for entrance into school is December 2. Therefore, if a child turns 6 in January, he/she doesn’t have to start school until the following Aug./Sept. (standard school year). The SARB wouldn’t occur until after that date, not when the child actually turns 6.
In the California schools that I am familiar with, the Kindergarten class starts at 8:30 and ends at 2:30. That is 10 minutes shorter than my school day when I was in high school (also in California). I would consider that a full day.
3
alicemercer
// Apr 15, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Mathew, that’s useful information. They are talking about taking Kinder up to 31 next year in my district, which would be BRUTAL without a second adult.
MathChique, in my district it and all the ones I know in Northern California it is still a half day (8:00 a.m. - 11:30) Thanks for the catch of that one day error on the cutoff, you are correct it is December 2nd.
4
bcds
// Apr 15, 2008 at 3:58 pm
When I was a parent of a kindergartner, many years ago, the half day sessions made it virtually impossible for me to go anywhere and get anything done. My kids would have benefited from full day; they were ready. As a former EC teacher of 18 years- 5 with preK and 13 with K, I saw enormous benefits to having a full day for K. I agree that this needs to be structured differently, but that is not difficult to achieve. Mandatory preK? Isn’t it Finland which scores highest on academic testing- where the kids don’t start school til they are 7 or 8?
Academically, preK can give kids who come from a background without a lot of stimulation a leg up. It can also help with socialization skills. But when are we going to stop pushing curriculum down? Some of the kids are barely out of diapers!
5
alicemercer
// Apr 15, 2008 at 4:33 pm
BCDS, my sister had a similar experience with a 2nd grader, twins in kinder, one in extended Special Ed class, and the other in regular class. And the regular ed twin and 2nd grader went to an “Open” school, so there was not “transport” and it was far away. She shared a mommy carpool, but I remember she looked more frazzled than I did, and she was a stay at home, while I worked.
On Finland, I hear what you are saying, but there are some salient culture/language difference when you compare the U.S. to any Scandinavian country. First, there is greater income equality (test scores track to income levels). Their cultures are largely homogeneous, so you don’t have things like the school/home disconnects that can happen in the U.S. I also wonder about differences in language, ex. their languages became written after pronunciations were largely “standardized”. English spelling vs. how it is said is a mess, and therefore can be quite difficult to teach especially when 25% (California) of your students are language learners. That being said, I do often wonder if we “create” reading disorders in our children by pushing them into reading so young?
6
Michaele Sommerville
// Apr 15, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I’ve taught half day, “extended day,” and full day programs. All have had their pros and cons, but the cons lists tend to get larger and larger as time passes. The need for meaningful preschool experiences gets misinterpreted and sold to the public as yet another necessary way to prep for “real” school earlier and earlier. Add to that unaffordable or unavailable day care…. and parents who try to keep up with the Joneses (or try to blow them out of the water entirely)… or parents who have been told/sold the “oh-my-goodness-your-child-won’t-ace-the-required-assessments” panic…and good programs, no matter how many hours of the day they encompass, get bastardized. Yep, I taught a class of thirty four students. Why? Because the budget was more important than the students. I taught children who were far too young (no, they were not inadequate, they were not “behind..” it just wasn’t their time yet) because of the push, push push to get ‘em younger, get ‘em sooner.
Most of us crawl before we walk, babble before we speak, children are no different. What do I advocate for? Developmentally appropriate practice. Stop with the racing, stop with the competition. Stop with the assessments in utero. What’s wrong with a child being six in kindergarten? Really? What’s wrong with letting children be children? In an ideal world, there would be no stigma attached to a child developing at his or her own pace, perhaps requiring another year of pre-school, perhaps staying home another year. Why deal with failure and resistance and possibly retention if the decision to give children the GIFT OF TIME was made at the beginning of school?
If the priority must be that every student start first grade at the same exact baseline with the same exact prior schema, sorry folks, a lot of people are going to be disappointed.
I advocate for giving children what THEY need and the experiences that will most benefit them when they’re truly ready for it, but pushing them all sooner, faster, competitively at their expense is not okay.
There are several schedules out there that can be used to great effect and in appropriate ways for young children. I’ll work on putting some up on my blog this week or weekend if anyone is interested.
7
alicemercer
// Apr 16, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Six in kinder I don’t have an issue with (my dh had issues about our son being that kid, and it was a big disagreement for us complicated by a number of issues), it’s five in first grade with no prior schooling that is setting a child up for failure.
I’m looking forward to your post, as always! Drop a link here when you’ve posted it.
8
MathChique
// Apr 16, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I agree with M. Sommerville. There are so many factors that apply to whether a child is ready for Kindergarten or first grade that have nothing to do with age. My son was born on December 2nd. Hence the reason I know the law. He did a two year kindergarten program that was available at the time. He was given a test, when he was 4 years old, to determine whether he was ready for kindergarten. He failed two parts of the test. He only put 4 fingers on the hand of the stick figure he drew (keep in mind that Mickey Mouse doesn’t have five fingers on each hand) and he failed the part of the test that required him to name as many animals as he could in a minute. He named the following animals: Tyrannosaurus Rex, Forceps Fish, Snowflake Morey Eel, Parrot Fish, and another animal that I can’t remember. Our family had just been snorkeling in Hawaii that summer, hence all the tropical fish. He failed that part of the test because he didn’t name enough animals. He also read and could do multiplication in his head that year. I call into question the whole, arbitrary notion of deciding that a child is ready or not ready for school solely dependent upon age. And, as clearly shown by the example, the test or the tester wasn’t particularly good indicator either.
I’m also surprised at the notion of “the race” to get kids into school. Where I live, in Northern California, more parents hold their children back from starting school if their birthdays are in the late summer and fall.
Great discussion.
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