Denver Post Staff Writer
The kids in Niki Mitchell's full-day kindergarten class are a pretty chatty bunch of 5-year-olds, and many of them are three months ahead of schedule in reading.
The teacher at Redstone Elementary School in Highlands Ranch attributes much of the kids' accelerated progress to the fact they spend about six hours each day in kindergarten instead of the usual three.
"That time is huge," Mitchell said. "The biggest thing that I absolutely love about it is you have more time with these kids so they don't feel so rushed."
About one-third of the public-school kindergartners in Colorado, some 20,700 kids, attend school all day - an advantage that gives them an academic boost well into elementary school, according to national and state research.
Some Colorado school districts are using state or federal money to provide full-day kindergarten. And in many cases, parents are paying tuition - at Redstone Elementary, it's $350 a month and there is a wait list.
A bill now making its way through the statehouse would make it easier for districts to increase taxes to fund full-day kindergarten.
Senate Bill 26, passed by the Senate and now under consideration by the House, would let school districts seek voter approval for an additional mill levy to pay for an all-day kindergarten program and building costs. The bill is aimed in particular at the 12 school districts that have reached their cap on property-tax increases.
Concerned about increased taxes, former Gov. Bill Owens vetoed similar legislation last year.
Supporters point to mounds of new research showing that kids who attend preschool and full-day kindergarten programs often have bigger vocabularies and score higher in reading and math.
The data show the progress is more noticeable in low-income children, who often have fewer books, creative toys and one-on-one attention at home.
Low-income kids in Denver Public Schools who attended preschool and full-day kindergarten increased their odds of reading at grade level to 74 percent, according to a study from the Piton Foundation, a Denver education advocacy group. That compared with 48 percent for kids who did not go to preschool or full-day kindergarten.
"If we really want to close the achievement gap, lower the dropout rate and send more kids to college, this is the only option we have," said Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, the House sponsor of the bill.
A handful of Republicans voted against the measure during House and Senate education committee hearings, arguing it is unfair to make all residents of a school district pay for something only some families want.
Many parents would rather have their kindergartners at home in the afternoon, said Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton.
"If there is a groundswell of parents in the community pushing for this ... I haven't heard it and I haven't seen that," Kopp said.
But Sen. Bob Bacon, a Fort Collins Democrat who was a history teacher and a school-board member, said communities should get the chance to choose whether they want to pay for full-day kindergarten.
"It's a continuing effort to chip away at the impediments to providing the best early-childhood education we can in Colorado," said Bacon, the bill sponsor in the Senate.
Under SB 26, districts that pass tax increases for full-day kindergarten would no longer get state-funded kindergarten slots in Colorado's preschool program for at-risk kids. The state now pays for 2,150 at-risk kids across the state to attend full-day kindergarten.
Across the country, legislatures increasingly are weighing in on early-childhood education, said Kathy Christie, vice president of the Education Commission of the States Clearinghouse.
"It's an area that previously has been left to families," she said. Now lawmakers are keying into the "predominant view that there is a pretty good payoff, particularly for low-income kids."
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
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20,700
Colorado kids in full-day kindergarten
61,100
Kids in any kindergarten program in
Colorado
119
School districts out of the 178 in
Colorado that have at least one child in full-day kindergarten
90
Percentage of students in a Colorado Springs state-funded full-day kindergarten program for at-risk kids who read at or above grade level
70.8
Percentage of that district's half-day kindergartners who read at or above grade level
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