Seth Rosenblatt

Seth Rosenblatt
October thirteen, 2015

Imagine if the country of California passed a law that stated that children born with blond hair go 14 years of free, taxpayer-funded, public education, while children with other hair colors only get 13 years. We know what would happen next – the public response would be swift, with protests throughout the land. The public wouldn't correspond such capricious discrimination against a group of our students. Legal action would be threatened. The pressure on lawmakers to reverse such a constabulary would exist enormous.

Does this sound far-fetched? Peradventure, only nosotros accept a police force on the books correct now that essentially does the aforementioned thing, only using a unlike arbitrary characteristic rather than hair colour. This is the law that enacted Transitional Kindergarten.

The Kindergarten Readiness Human action of 2010 changed the date to September 1 by which children must exist five years sometime to enter kindergarten. In addition, information technology created a new programme, chosen Transitional Kindergarten, which requires (and funds) an extra yr of costless, public schooling for children whose 5th altogether falls betwixt September 2 and December ii – those children who, nether the old law, would have been eligible to attend regular kindergarten. These children have the opportunity to attend a year of transitional kindergarten, followed past a year of regular kindergarten.

So, effectively what happened is that kids who are lucky enough to exist born in September, Oct, or Nov are eligible to get xiv years of taxpayer-funded public teaching (Chiliad-12 plus one year of transitional kindergarten), while students built-in in whatever other calendar month only go thirteen years (K-12).

There is cypher fundamentally unfair in changing the cutoff date for starting kindergarten – nosotros have to pick some appointment on the calendar. Information technology is of class inherently arbitrary, just information technology is likewise non unfair. The objectionable function of the law is the improver of an extra yr of schooling for some kids and not for others.

It would be laughable to argue that kids born in but those three months are at a disadvantage to learn compared to those born in other months, and therefore demand an extra year of schoolhouse, nor could it be argued that it is somehow in the state'south larger interest to practise and so.

Despite what appears to be a serious flaw in the Transitional Kindergarten law, I accept hesitated to write such an article over the last few years for fear that we collectively would have put political and/or legal pressure level to take the law overturned. I guess I figured getting 25 percent of students an extra year of instruction is better than none.

I have always advocated for making at least two years of preschool gratis and part of our public schoolhouse system, and so I feared that any early on backlash to the constabulary would set back the movement in this direction. Withal, given that Transitional Kindergarten is firmly entrenched in school districts (and at least in our district, has been a wildly successful and impactful program), I now discover information technology politically unfeasible for the state to take this away. Rather, faced with the apparent unfairness, the state should do what it should accept done in the showtime identify, which is make the program universal for all students.

There take been some attempts to extend transitional kindergarten to all students, and some districts have explored doing information technology on their ain with fractional support from the state. The state has now agreed to pay for TK students who turn 5 after Dec ii to enroll in a transitional kindergarten programme, only to first merely paying districts for the days they are in attendance subsequently they turn five.

Despite most educators' knowing the value of a universal preschool plan, this is a conundrum for districts. A schoolhouse district can allow students to enroll in the transitional programme afterwards they turn five – quondam after December 2 – merely that could be unworkable from a logistics and pedagogical viewpoint, and all the same inherently unequal. Districts could as well decide to encompass the cost on their own for educating younger transitional kindergarten children while they are just 4 years old. That, all the same, would divert resources the district has to serve students it is mandated by law to serve.

So, as a practical matter, districts (including ours) volition probable choose not to serve children who plough v after Dec 2 until the post-obit school yr, when they can enter regular kindergarten.

Many educators as well contend that allowing all 4-year-olds into Transitional Kindergarten would be inappropriate because it wasn't designed for a full-year age bridge of students. But of course the curriculum could exist modified to exist advisable for the whole accomplice.

What is shocking to me is how piffling the discriminatory nature of this programme has been discussed. All it takes is a few disgruntled parents and some enterprising attorneys to apply serious political pressure and threaten legal activeness. The legal issues here are complex, and I recognize it is far from certain that a court would agree that the Transitional Kindergarten police force amounts to illegal bigotry. However, there may certainly exist legal problems, and rather than risking that path, land legislators could act now to require and fund a universal preschool programme that would just be part of the existing public schoolhouse organization and open to all children (including funding for schoolhouse districts for appropriate facilities to support it). It is unclear if the country will be forced to exercise so at some signal, but certainly this would be the right thing to practice to benefit all of our children.

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Seth Rosenblattis a fellow member of the governing lath of the San Carlos School District. He is also the past president of the San Mateo Canton School Boards Association. He has had two children educated in San Carlos public schools.

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