Source: Strategies for Children

Full-day kindergarten – some children have access to it, but across the country many don’t.

In fact, “less than third of all states even require full-day kindergarten,” Education Week reports, adding:

“That’s one of the findings in a 50-state comparison guide to policies surrounding kindergarten through 3^rd grade…” The guide was released by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Education Commission of the States.

“The newly updated report, which was released last month, finds that that only 15 states and the District of Columbia require full-day kindergarten.”

As the Children’s Defense Fund argues, “Unequal access to publicly funded full-day and full-week, high-quality kindergarten means too many young children lose a critical opportunity to develop and strengthen foundational skills necessary for success in school and lifelong learning.”

To level the playing field, cities and states are making progress and headlines, including smaller cities like Fairbanks, Alaska, and Pittsford, New York.

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Here at Strategies for Children we’ve recently updated our full-day K resources on Massachusetts and other states, and we’ve found some encouraging local news.

For the upcoming school year, 10 school districts in Massachusetts have eliminated the practice of charging parents tuition for full-day kindergarten. This brings the total number of districts that charge tuition districts down to 45.

The trend towards eliminating tuition is good news for children, families, and communities, among them Marshfield, which is one of the 10 tuition-cutting towns, thanks to the ongoing advocacy of parents and other community stakeholders. You can read more about the push for free, full-day K here, here, and here.

And please check out these Strategies’ updated resources, our:

• full-day kindergarten fact sheet

• full-day kindergarten enrollment map by city and town

• full-day kindergarten tuition rates, and

• full-day kindergarten tuition map by city and town

Now that full-day kindergarten access is nearly universal in Massachusetts, fresh attention should be paid to program quality and to better alignment – so that there’s a closer curricular link between preschool and kindergarten and between kindergarten and the early elementary grades. This would create a more cohesive, developmentally appropriate, early learning experience for children — and more effective education in Massachusetts.