I read the R-J this morning and saw the article featuring your position on all-day kindergarten. Your views coincide with mine, and I have been writing legislators about it since before this year’s session. I have attached my letter to them for your info.

The real problem, of course, is not education, per se; it is a problem in society whereby parents do not exercise their responsibilities, and the school system aids and abets this irresponsibility by instituting programs such as all-day kindergarten. In middle school and beyond, teachers are unable to maintain discipline and adhere to standards because the parents, as well as the school administration, are not supportive of the teachers’ efforts and will not take a firm stand.

In all this talk of Nevada’s poor educational results, everyone seems to be ignoring, at least overtly, this six-ton elephant in the corner of the room, this societal problem of which “we dare not speak.” If certain legislators intend to promote this all-day kindergarten concept, they should be forced to speak the truth and acknowledge the elephant.

The paper quoted Bonnie Parnell as saying all-day kindergarten was wonderful and she couldn’t see how this would hurt the students. Yes it will, by further ignoring the REAL problem, fomenting further abrogation of parental rights and duties, and wasting precious education dollars. What nonsense.

Re: All-Day Kindergarten

Dear Assemblyman Goedhart,

I am writing to urge you to oppose the all-day kindergarten initiative that is being discussed in this year’s session.

I believe that children of that age should not be in kindergarten for an extended period. The learning goals for these children, at their young ages and with their tendency for exhaustion in a structured setting away from home, can be well met during a few hours.

I believe that we need to recognize the diminishing returns, from an education standpoint, of keeping kindergarteners more than a few hours at school. I do not consider naps periods of educational enrichment.

Any educational advantages of kindergarten, let alone all-day kindergarten, are rarely extant after the child progresses a few grade levels. The real breakdown in education occurs with a number of children during middle school and beyond, where lack of parental oversight and control, and the inability of teachers to maintain discipline and standards with full support from the educational institution and parents, become the dominating factors.

No amount of educational dollars, at any grade level, will fix these obvious, but too often unspoken, impediments to a quality education. Achievement standards that should be met for progression to the next grade level cannot or will not be enforced uniformly in the system as currently implemented. All-day kindergarten will not help.

Now, if we are substituting kindergarten as a publicly funded daycare, I can see why many constituents would support it, particularly working mothers or, perhaps, some who do not take full responsibility for their young children on their own.

If we are going to promote this idea, however, I would prefer that we honestly call it what it is: Subsidized Daycare. Or, perhaps, the true goal is to transfer even more parental responsibility to the teachers at an earlier stage, which has an even more ominous portent for our education system.

I would urge you not to support an all-day kindergarten program, and to use our scarce educational funds for more productive purposes.

Sincerely,
Jim Mutton, Ph.D.
Las Vegas

Comments