Full-Day vs. Half-Day Kindergarten Programs

There has been debate for years in Milford regarding the inclusion of public kindergarten. However, I remain convinced that Milford needs to offer public kindergarten, and the sooner the better.

I think that one issue that has held back the incorporation of public kindergarten into Milford is that some voters have wanted to see convincing evidence that public kindergarten is advantageous as compared to private kindergarten. The problem with this is that it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to find any relatively recent peer-reviewed scholarship that identifies the value of offering public kindergarten as compared to private kindergarten. The reason for this is that public kindergarten has long since been considered by mainstream educators to be an integral part of public education, and that there is no controversy regarding the value of public kindergarten that needs studying. It is unfortunate that there remains a need for this type of analysis in New Hampshire.

There have been some studies that compare the value of full-day versus half-day public kindergarten programs since this is a topic that does not have a consensus opinion among educators. One fairly comprehensive analysis of data from the 1998-99 school year was published in 2004, and can be found at this URL:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004078.pdf

The title of this study was “Full-day and Half-day Kindergarten in the United States, Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99.” This 154 page document is chock full of all types of analysis about various kindergarten issues.

This is the beginning of the executive summary of the study:

“A major trend in kindergarten programs that has occurred in the past few decades is an increase in the prevalence of kindergarten classes that meet for the entire school day rather than just a part of the day. The increase has been attributed to various social, economic and educational factors. Increases in the number of single parent households and households with both parents working are commonly cited as important factors contributing to the need for full-day programs… Arranging childcare during the workday is less costly and less complicated for these families when the child is in school for the whole day rather than half of the day. Another rationale in support of full-day kindergarten is that children who have spent some of their pre-kindergarten years in nursery school classes or child care arrangements (often full-day) are ready for the cognitive, social and physical demands of a full-day kindergarten… Proponents of full-day kindergarten also emphasize the potential educational benefit—teachers have more time to get to know their children and individualize their instruction, and children have more time to acquire the early academic skills taught in kindergarten… In some cases, the move to full-day classes has been made to provide sufficient time for children to complete kindergarten curriculum that has become increasingly rigorous…”

One section that I found of particular interest was a chart that showed that from 1970 to 1998, there was a steady rise in the nationwide percentage of students attending full-day kindergarten as compared to half-day programs. The percentage going full-time rose from about 18% to about 56% during that time period.
Another finding of the study was that students attending full-day kindergarten programs had slightly better cognitive gains during the school year as compared to half-day programs.

The implication of the study is that full-day kindergarten programs provide benefits that make them worthwhile. It seems that the trend towards full-day programs will continue due to these advantages.

From my perspective, I would be happy to simply institute a half-day public kindergarten program in Milford, and leave it at that level for a long period of time. There is a large difference between no program and a half-day program, while the difference between a half-day program and a full-day program is much smaller.