"Who thinks everyone deserves a quality education regardless of financial status?" "I do!"

I started kindergarten in 1981, when I was 4 years old.  Back then, the typical half-day class involved tracing some letters and numbers, having a snack and taking a nap.  (Was nap time really necessary?  We were only there for 3 hours!)  My class was monitored by a kind, grey-haired lady named Mrs. Dashner, who was more a grandma figure than a teacher.

Flash forward 30 years, and my daughter’s kindergarten class is helmed by a bright, energetic 20-something working on her second master’s degree.  Kindergarten is no longer a 3-hour babysitting session, it’s a full day, full-on experience.  Recent topics of study in my daughter’s class have included the life cycle of butterflies and chicks, replete with live science lab where caterpillars cocooned and chicks incubated.  The butterflies were released on Friday and the chicks are now growing contour feathers, but my little chickadee is still only 5.  She won’t turn 6 until over a month into first grade.  She’s part of a dying breed of kindergartners who are 4 at the beginning of the school year.  According to the New York Times, “Connecticut, one of the last states to allow 4-year-olds to enter kindergarten, is considering changing its rules so that children would have to be 5 by Oct. 1, not Jan. 1, prompting a fight over access, equity and persistent achievement gaps based on race and class.” Continue reading »

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Gun fell out of backpack and discharged.

Houston police are reporting that a 5-year-old child took a loaded gun to Ross Elementary this morning.

Investigators tell a local news station the kindergarten students were in the cafeteria when the gun fell out of the child’s backpack and discharged.

Three kindergarten students were injured by gun powder but none were shot, detectives said.  The student who took the gun to school was among those injured. Continue reading »

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There are over 3100 kids waitlisted for kindergartens at New York City’s public schools. They come from all over the city, from all walks of life. Most kindergarten spots are awarded by lottery, so it is literally luck of the draw whether you get your pick of schools or not.

Here’s one thing most of those waitlisted kids don’t have: a twin.

According to the New York Times, twins get a double shot at precious kindergarten spots. Continue reading »

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Getting waitlisted can be upsetting

It’s been years since I had to apply to colleges, but the pain from the experience still haunts me. The SAT prep, the school visits, the application torture — I still recall the relief I felt when I got into college and swore I’d never forget how the misery of the entire process drove me to the brink of insanity.

A bunch of kids in New York are going through a similar hell at the moment. Only it’s for kindergarten. And unlike me who was lucky enough to be accepted to my first-choice college by early decision, 3,100 of the preschool tots have been waitlisted for the kindergarten of their choice. That’s almost 1,000 more than were waitlisted last year.

Continue reading »

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Can You Resist the Parent Volunteer Vortex?

This school year, will you be sucked into the (cue scary music) “The School Volunteer Vortex”?

On her blog Late Blooming Mom, 45-year-old working mother Holly Sklar describes her initiation into public school volunteering and the onslaught of all these Uber Volunteer Moms who are clamoring to suck her into her ranks. Two weeks into her kids’ kindergarten year, and she’s already fed up.

In a blog post highlighted on the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, she writes:

I have filled out dozens of forms from the [parent booster] club, not to mention the kids’ teachers, all to do with what activities I can volunteer to be a part of, in the classroom and outside of it, ranging from re-shelving library books to driving kids to and from field trips to helping to organize and run any of the myriad of fund-raising events and activities that occur throughout the year. I’ve been told of mandatory commitments per child at the school, e.g., every family has to work one traffic safety shift, at pickup or drop-off, per child, during the year. I have been invited to no less than four volunteer events, and I’ve already missed two of those. I’ve been asked to contribute the “suggested” amount per child – and nothing that you can pay in ten installments is cheap –  because, though a public education is free, a great one is not — especially nowadays.  Every day brings more mail in the kids’ backpacks, offering additional ways to get involved.

If I get another piece of paper from the parent association, it’s quite possible my head is going to explode.

Continue reading »

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At a home visit earlier this week, my younger daughter’s kindergarten teacher told me her class would start with just 13 kids.  We were sad that some beloved friends would be moving on, but there was a bright side — small kindergarten classes mean more individualized attention and instruction from the teacher.

In fact, a recent study funded by the National Science Foundation found that a small class size in kindergarten can actually boost a child’s future earning potential by $2,000.  At a time when districts are cutting back on non-essential programs, this study shows that investing in early childhood education is more important than ever.

Researchers identified 12,000 kindergarten students in 80 schools across Tennessee, then followed up with them when they reached age 30.  Here’s what else they found:

• Continue reading »

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Turns out, a ton! A good Kindergarten teacher is worth, annually, around $320,000. And not in that “if you can read this, thank a teacher way,” but in real and actual U.S. dollars.

Economists have long thought that early childhood education and the first years of elementary school are important, but only in getting kids through those earlier years. The effect of good preschools and excellence in those first years was shown to fade by the time kids reached junior high and high school. By then, you couldn’t tell the ones who did well in Kindergarten from the ones who didn’t. Continue reading »

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