Governor Gibbons made it clear he will veto any education budget that includes all-day kindergarten, even willing to go into a special session if proponents try to ram it through as reported April 10th by Ray Hagar of the Reno Gazette-Journal. The partisan reaction will be all too predictable. There will be a public relations campaign to portray Gibbons as being unreasonable and unwilling to compromise, hiding the fact that it is the other side that is being unreasonable and unwilling to compromise.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus is quoted in Hagar’s article as stating, “But it amazes me that he is already drawing that line in the sand and is unwilling to talk about compromise.” The record will show it is the intransigence and unwillingness of some Democratic leaders in the Legislature to abandon their extreme position despite the evidence, data, and budgetary realities on this issue.

The Legislature has been provided solid studies refuting the hyperbolic benefits claimed by supporters of all-day kindergarten. They have even been provided information showing kindergarten is not Nevada’s problem area; rather the problems are in secondary education with its high dropout rates, high college remediation rates, and lack of Career and Technical Education programs. If your arm is broken but the doctor at the ER insists on working on your healthy leg, you should get another doctor. Then again most can’t, Nevada doesn’t have school choice.

One could even argue the advocates for all-day kindergarten lack confidence in its merits by their insistence on mandating and forcing the program from above rather than letting schools have the option of choosing it if they so desire under the Empowerment plan. If given a choice of spending a set amount of money on expanding kindergarten or on another program, they must fear few principals would choose the former. They are consistently against people having options and choices whether they are parents or principals.

Throw into the mix the concern that we cannot find enough teachers for existing programs and the predicted need to cut $130 million from the “increases” in the state budget, K-12’s 13% increase is protected, the insistence on the part of the liberal Legislative leaders to pursue mandating all-day kindergarten will leave most scratching their heads as to why. To do so to the point of forcing Governor Gibbons to veto the budget and go into a special session is obdurate and self-willed beyond the standard definition of reasonable.

There were early on predictions this may transpire. Ed Vogel, Las Vegas Review-Journal January 22, 2007 quoted Assembly Minority Leader Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, “Putting in full-day kindergarten will take a huge number,” he said. “It is a good day care center program for parents who work. I don’t see why Barbara may make it the hill to die for.”

Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun February 4, 2007 quipped, “What does Barbara Buckley really want? Madame Speaker has 27 members (a curse in disguise?) and she is more ideologically driven than most who have held the position. It will be fascinating to divine her hill or hills to die for and watch how many of her troops will charge behind her.”

Governor Gibbons is definite in his resolve to veto an expensive program that does not address Nevada’s salient education problems. It is unlikely he will blink in this game of political chicken. The other, partisan side must be counting on their well-developed skills for spin and distraction to hide they are the ones putting their own political agenda above fixing the public schools. “We are pushing ahead with full-day kindergarten,” Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said on the April 11th airing of Sam Shad’s Nevada Newsmakers.

Is there a reasonable compromise available to avert this unnecessary train wreck? Yes, S.B. 545. It provides remediation grants to school districts, which they can apply for with the Nevada Department of Education. Among the numerous remediation options listed is all-day kindergarten. $140 million is attached to this grant program, a very generous amount by any standards.

The question is whether the all-day kindergarten advocates are willing to give up their position by forcibly mandating it versus choosing it. If they are unsuccessful in painting the governor as being unreasonable and their extreme “all or nothing” position comes to light as the true cause for a potential veto and special session, they may have to rethink, regroup and become receptive to reason.

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