For Immediate Release
Contact Andy Matthews
May 3, 2007
(702) 222-0642

Proponents of expanding full-day kindergarten in Nevada threaten to divert limited education funds to programs that studies indicate produce little or no lasting benefit to students, Joe Enge, education policy analyst at the Nevada Policy Research Institute, told legislators Thursday.

All too often, Enge said, the rhetoric from those who advocate expanding such programs does not correlate with the results found in the extensive research conducted on the subject. Enge contrasted the incomplete nature of the list of studies put forth by proponents, which was fraught with omissions of important and serious works on the matter, with a newly published NPRI bibliography that contains nearly 300 papers and studies that examine the effects of pre-school and full-day kindergarten. The bibliography is available at npri.org.

Testifying before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Enge challenged claims that full-day kindergarten programs produce widespread benefits to students, including suggestions that full-day kindergarten programs reduce incarceration levels. Enge also questioned the wisdom of shifting funding toward full-day kindergarten when the facts indicate Nevada’s most pressing educational problems are at the secondary level, as evidenced by dropout and remediation rates.

“I urge the committee to read the valid research on all-day kindergarten, keep in mind our most pressing shortcomings in education are at the secondary level, and focus our finite resources on addressing these problems instead of funding this pet project of so little merit,” Enge said. He noted that the bulk of the research conducted on full-day kindergarten indicates little or no positive impact on student performance, and that any benefits are usually short-lived.

###
The Nevada Policy Research Institute ∙ 1700 E. Desert Inn Rd., Suite 405A, Las Vegas, NV 89169
Phone: (702) 222-0642 ∙ Fax: (702) 227-0927 ∙ Web site: www.npri.org

Comments