The Children’s Defense Fund wants everyone to understand that the “K” in “K-12” isn’t a sure thing. As CDF points out, most states require school districts to offer kindergarten to families who want it, but children in six states aren’t guaranteed that opportunity. And only 10 states and DC require kindergarten to be a full-school-day experience.  

The most current enrollment data shows that about 70 percent of children are in full-day (FDK) programs.  To be sure, some of the children who don’t participate don’t because of parental choice, but many families who want FDK lack access.  Some early ed advocates fear that the absence of strong state policy makes existing FDK programs vulnerable to the budget ax, meaning even fewer seats for children who stand to benefit most from full-day programs.   

In response, CDF is going full throttle to advocate for making FDK an expectation for kids as much as 1^st grade already is.  Last week, they released a resource center to make this case. It includes, among other things, an interactive map where you can access FDK fact sheets for every state.

There are good reasons to give FDK a close look:

• FDK produces results. As Jim Hull showed in his CPE study, children who have both pre-k and FDK had stronger 3^rd grade reading skills than their peers who did not. The results were particularly dramatic for children from low-income families.  Other research also shows that children with FDK outperform children who have only half-day K.
• New demands and the common core state standards. To date, 45 states and DC have adopted the CCSS. Some experts believe that meeting the kindergarten benchmarks in the CCSS may demand a full-day program.
• Working parents like it. FDK is especially helpful for low- and middle-class families who are struggling to find good afterschool services that they can afford. 

As with pre-k, merely expanding access to full-day kindergarten won’t produce results in itself. We have to pay attention to quality. It took over a decade of nagging and cajoling from the early childhood experts to finally get us elementary-secondary folks to simply understand the meaning of “developmentally appropriate.”  Now that we get the importance of paying attention to children’s social and emotional development as well as academic, we have to be sure that a full-day program serves the unique needs of little ones and resist the pressure to turn kindergarten into junior 1^st grade.   

Which all argues for the role of local school leadership in designing a more comprehensive P-3 strategy that includes a well-thought-out, appropriate role for kindergarten.  We have some tools to help you get started on the Center’s pre-k Web page. Also, check out the Pre-K Coalition’s P-3 Alignment Brief. – Patte Barth