I paid to put both my kids through full day kindergarten. Senator Courtney, please contact me at your soonest convenience so that we can arrange for my refund.

There are good reasons that public k-12 education is...er, used to be...free.

Maybe you could just hand over your kids to the state right after they are born, since the state obviously knows better.... I have not spoken to ONE teacher that thought full day kindergarten is a good idea, unless you just want free babysitting and more PERS employees. I would think all you Dems would be for stay at home moms or dads being the best for little Johnny....yunno, no need for that SUV and the second salary to pay for it.

<h2>"Thanks, Paul. This is totally outrageous."</h2>

What is outrageous is that Sup. Susan did not get legal clarification before she sent out her advisory to the school districts. School Districts rely on her and the ODE to understand the issues and ADVISE them. She clearly screwed up big time on this one.

Just add it to the list of Susan's ODE screw ups:

1) Unsafe charter buses can't be used for athletic team travel, only Big Yellow School buses. (Opps, never mind, changed her mind, they are safe enough.)

2) Online State Testing... nope, vendor didn't get paid, so they shut down the online testing, forcing the kids to use paper and pencil instead. Now 2006-2007 tests won't be comparable to other years!

3) Home school and alternative school kids can be claimed by School Districts for partial funding (State School Funds), but guidelines and advise from ODE was so screwed up Bethel, Baker, Sisters and 30 other districts are still confused on who/what is allowable and what isn't. DOJ spanked ODE on that one.

And now Susan wants the legislature to fix her pay for kindergarten problem by making a law that allows for charging for public all day kindergarten.

It does seem to be a bit of a cluster going on down in Salem on this issue. Some schools have been charging for all day K for years now. I pay $360 a month for one kid to go to all day K. It really is just child care since they don't teach our kid much but she enjoys riding the bus and playing with other kids all day. Besides, my wife seems to enjoy having the house to herself for a few hours each day. Having a happy wife is easily worth $360 a month!

It's inexcusable that Courtney didn't know this. But even worse is this statement about allowing districts to charge parents:

But Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, says Senate Democrats hate that idea. "That's not going to fly. Public education is public education."

Vicki Walker says much the same thing. So let me get this straight: The legislature isn't willing to fund full-day kindergarten, but you won't let me pay for it myself? I sympathize with the budget issues in the state, but the answer is NOT to deny people the opportunity to do what they think is right for their children (the research is pretty clear that full-day kindergarten is a good thing). That's a sure-fire way to convince everyone who can afford it to start their kids in private school, and not all of them will come back for 1st grade.

Besides, this legal opinion sounds shaky. Public schools routinely charge for before-school and after-school care, for intramurals, for sports, for art, for music. Seems all the schools need to do is repackage the "full-day" kindergarten into a "regular half-day kindergarten" class plus a half-day supplemental program. If the lawyers say the public schools can't charge for ANYTHING, our schools are in a world of hurt.

(For the record, I support full-funding for all-day kindergarten as well as sports, art, and music. But given fiscal realities, that's unlikely.)

Conservatives have gotten really weird.

Please pick on Pete Courtney more often. He certainly deserves it. The man is arrogant and out of touch.

I am not a believer in all-day kindergarten. Children at that age need to be eased into the school experience in preparation for 1st grade and beyond. Additionally, it enables parents to pass off too many of the things they should be working on with their children to others.

It is like Jenni said:

They're teaching kids their numbers, letters, colors, shapes, recognizing words, seasons, days of the week, and more.

Kids at this age need a lot more one-on-one time, especially for those kids like my daughter who have almost no experience being in day care or any other school-like situations.

HELLO????

If more parents took or found the time to make this a family experience we would have a heck of a lot less remediation in later grades.

My four year old can do all of these things. Each night before he goes to bed we read.

Further, we already have a classroom shortage in this state. Doubling the number of kindergarten classrooms by going all day is going to create much more crowded classes in 1st to 6th grade classes.

I just don't see the benefit. It hurts more than it helps.

That's what Riverdale High School is. A public high school that receives tax dollars AND tuition dollars. It is, frankly, outrageous. Public school should be public. Period.

Kari (and Courtney and Walker): This "public should be public" argument is absurd if the Democratic legislature is not willing to fully fund these programs. You cannot deny funding for something most parents want, and then make it illegal for them to pay for it themselves. Well, I guess you can if your ultimate goal is to push every parent with disposable income out of the public school system. (I trust that's not your goal.)

Best solution: Fully fund it. But if you're not going to do that, you absolutely HAVE to make it legal for parents to pay for the full-day program. Those are your only two alternatives.

This is a very interesting discussion. I can't quite put my hands on it, but I have seen many studies on the benefits of full-day kindergarten and they are mixed. Full Day DOES have substantial benefits for individuals in low SES (socio-economic status) and kids with special needs, but average kids don't see a "lasting" benefit, that is, a benefit that lasts beyond the 3rd grade. By the 3rd grade, full day and half-day K kids have equalized. All that said, my daughter goes to half-day kindergarten right now, plus "extended-care" at the school (essentially mixed ages day care). And if there had been full-day kindergarten at her school (even for pay) I would have done it, in a heart beat.

Also, much has been said about Supt. Castillo's advocacy for full-day K in previous legislative sessions, and it should be noted, that the legislation she pushed, as cited above (would have "modif(ied) the State School Fund distribution formula to increase the weighting for full-day kindergarten students from 0.5 to 1.0".), does not provide ANY additional dollars for kindergarten program, it merely changes the way the state distributes a FIXED pot of money out to school districts. Essentially, it would have moved funds around among districts, but would have added no new money to the system. This year the state appropriated 6.245 billion for schools, if Castillo's bill had passed the state would have appropriated 6.245 billion, yup, the same! Her change is merely a shell game, not what is needed, a bold initiative to fully fund all-day kindergarten!

I agree with Miles on this one, if the State isn't willing to cover the cost for full day K then why do they have a problem with me paying for it?

As for the value of all day K I'll just say that I don't see much. But I suppose opinions vary. In our particular situation our daughter was reading books in pre-school so the fact that they don't even teach reading at the K level means she isn't learning much this year.

What is wrong with changing the state funding formula so that a five year old student is treated the same by the state of Oregon as a 6 year old, or a seven year old student?

Why should state policy say that a full day of kindergarten is only going to get a half day of funding?

Castillo has fought hard for more dollars over the years, she has publicly challenges legislative leadership and anyone else that tried to low ball funds for schools.

I think full day vs half day should be an individual choice. For that matter, kindergarten at all should be an individual choice that the parents make. Having said that, if the kindergarten, full or half day, is going to be in a public school, then it should be funded by public dollars.

I also think that too many parents cop out on trying to teach their kids anything and put it all on the schools/teachers. Kids will learn new things at school, but if those things are not reinforced or reviewed at home, the knowledge will be lost. Kindergarten is, to many parents, glorified day care. They need to step up and realize it's SCHOOL and approach it from that starting point. Get the kids ready to learn each day, make sure they have their supplies/lunch, review the day's lessons with them and find ways to incorporate what they are learning into everyday life. Otherwise, everyone's time is wasted---kids, teachers, and parents.

I personally didn't go to kindergarten at all. I was enrolled and went for a month and then my parents pulled me out because I was bored silly. Of course, I was lucky and had a stay-at-home mother who had already taught me to read at a second grade level. Lots of kids (then and now) don't have that option.

Friendly correction Paul

The practice had been going on for over a decade.

What the 10 members of the committee chose to pass along to the full body were public education budgets that significantly increased the investment in public education at all levels.

Come on, Larry, have enough respect not to spin us. As the Oregonian reported, bills that would have funded all-day kindergarten statewide died in 2005 and 2007. That means that you and your Democratic colleagues didn't fund it. I'm sympathetic to the budget constraints that you work under, but in return I want honesty.

You didn't fund it last session, there's no money in the interim session, and now I hear Courtney and Walker telling me that I can't have it AT ALL? Why should I respond to that with anything but outrage?

My guess is that the Dems have a little PR issue on this matter. They couldn't get the votes to fully fund it, and they hate the fact that "rich" people can buy full day K. So rather than let the people who can afford it pay for it, they want to make everyone suffer equally. After all, in their twisted world, having everyone shortchanged is better than letting the wealthier people have something that the poor can't have.

I just have a different perspective on the issue. Life isn't fair and this is just another situation where some people can afford something that others can't. I don't get my panties in a bunch when my neighbor drives a new Lexus while I drive a 10 year old model. I don't care that he sends his kids to Portland French School and I send my kids to public school. So why should someone care that I can afford the $360 a month for full day K while someone else down the street can't?

If full day K was really that important then the votes would be there to fund it. Since it isn't that important then let people who want it pay for it. If some people who want it can't afford it then I guess that is tough. I want a Ferrari but I can't quite afford it, doesn't mean the taxpayers need to buy me one.

We're all rightly fixated on tuition-paid full-day K here. . . but you should know that 35 of our Portland Public Schools have kindergartens that offer full-day K at no charge to parents by using federal Title I money. Those are the schools where at least 40 percent of kids qualify for free and reduced meals.

In the other 23 schools with fewer kids from low-income families, parents pay the cost of the teacher for the second half of the day. In those schools we offer 150 scholarships to lower-income families. So it's not just the rich who can get full-day K in Portland!

Parents have been overwhelmingly interested in full-day kindergarten, both where it's offered at no charge and where it's tuition-based. About 90 percent of our classrooms are full-day. So there are many of us looking to Salem to sort through this in a way that preserves that valued option for parents and students.

Sarah Carlin Ames PPS Communications [email protected]

Sarah Carlin Ames,

You could EASILY pay for it by bagging the incredibly wasteful ESL programs, but then those are actually profit centers with the fed money...... But the basic question is still, what do you think your kids are learning in all day kindergarten that is more important than being in a home situation?? If a full day a 5 years old is better, is a full day at 4 years old even better yet? For what, purely social? Kids must now read at 5?

"we are thrilled with his progress" Whaa??? You mean of the state taking over your roll as a parent? Yeah, seperate'm as soon as possible, now if we can get the state to pay for the boarding school....

Please get off the competitive treadmill, if you dont think little Johnny is better off spending time with Mom or Dad at that age, you shouldn't have had kids.

dddave, it's not that we think our kids are better off at school than with us, it's a belief in public education and a wonderful supplement to the efforts we make at home. My daughter has learned to problem-solve and deal with social situations at school that I could not replicate for her at home. 1/2 day K is 2 hours, 45 minutes a day. For kids who have attended 2-3 years of pre-school, that's simply not enough. My kid was a pre-reader starting off the school year and needed the challenge/stimulation of a full day K. To be honest, the cost was a factor for us. I considered 1/2 day, but it just would not have been enough for my child and since we both work, I decided better to have her in school than in some other programs or daycare ($$) till I could get home.

<h2>I think full-day K should be available to all families and how about good pre-school access, too? There was a stark difference in my daughter's class between those who had pre-school and those who did not.</h2>