All day kindergarten, lower class size or fully fund Head Start?

There's a tussle afoot over how to spend some of the new K-12 money in the governor's budget.

State Superintendent Susan Castillo wants to fund all-day kindergarten, whereas currently the state only provides funds for half days. The governor wants to make Head Start available for every child who qualifies, whereas now about 60% of the qualified kids have spots in Head Start programs. And Project Chalkboard wants to decrease class sizes in kindergarten and first grade classrooms to 15 students per class, whereas now the number (on average - it varies widely) is about 21 students per class.

Each, of course, comes with its own price tag. So what is the best use of tax dollars? Available research barely clarifies things.

The effects of Head Start programs have been studied time and again. The convergence of the research would suggest that kids in HS programs do indeed enter school with an advantage over their peers, but that advantage disappears after about grade three. The best summary of the research I have found was in Abigail Thernstrom's "No Excuses - Eliminating the Achievement Gap in Education."

There is simply not much good research on the benefits of all day kindergarten.

Class size, like Head Start, has been studied time and again. The quick bottom line: lowering class size has very little effect except at the early elementary level, and then only if the class size is reduced to the 14-15 students per class, where a small but statistically significant gain in achievement made.

So given these three choices, what is the best direction? I'll give a thumbnail analysis that handicaps each:

Head Start: The fact that gains from Head Start participation disappears after a few years is probably less a knock on Head Start programs than it is the schools that Head Start students tend to attend after leaving Head Start. By definition, Head Start is primarily in low income areas where the elementary schools are far more likely to be bad. It could very well be the case that Head Start is generally doing its job very effectively, only to have the elementary schools screwing it up. But if that is the case, wouldn't our efforts and money be better spent reforming the elementary schools, rather than spending more on Head Start?

All-day kindergarten: This is very popular with parents, because they get a longer break from their little darlings each day. But the educational benefits are suspect at best. The fact is, our kindergartens are mostly play-schools, as currently structured. For the most part, not much in the way of academics is taught in kindergarten. They tend to focus on "readiness" activities.

In the Arthur Academies that I help start, we do indeed have academic kindergartens where we focus on phonics and basic math. Would a full day make us more effective? No - five year olds simply are not equipped to have all-day academics. If the state funded all day kindergarten, we wouldn't probably increase the academic component of our kindergartens at all. (Oh, by the way, our kindergartners are off-the-charts in academic achievement, which calls the question: if we can do that in a half day, why would a full day be required?)

Class size reduction: Class size reduction is the "minimum wage" of education. That is, it is terrific politics, and horrible policy. Like a call for an increase in minimum wage, no politician ever was criticized for calling for smaller class sizes. It sounds compassionate, it threatens no-one, and both parents and the education establishment love it. But it is lousy policy.

As I said, the research shows a discernible increase in achievement only when class size is below 15 students. Project Chalkboard at least should be given credit in that they are calling for reducing the size to that level. But the question is whether this is the best way to get that level of achievement increase - and the answer is emphatically NO. As researcher Eric Hanushek (who did most of his class size research while at the University of Rochester) showed, class size reduction is perhaps the least efficient way to increase achievement. Dollar for dollar, there are far better ways.

The problem is that class size initiatives require hiring a lot of teachers, the quality of which are suspect. Then, there is the problem of facilities. Nobody ever prices in the cost of classrooms when suggesting lower class sizes - they always just calculate the personnel cost.

A seat in an Oregon elementary school these days requires a capital investment of roughly $20,000. Reducing kindergarten and first grade class sizes by a third means about 30,000 new seats - that would cost $600+ million to build anew. Of course, some districts have excess capacity, such as Portland, so they wouldn't have to build. But nearly every other Portland metro area school district already has a shortage of classrooms. Mandating lower class sizes would force them to pass new bonds to build more classrooms - and this cost has not been part of the discussion initiated by Chalkboard.

So, what is the best choice? Frankly, none of them would be on my list of the best ways to improve educational outcomes. We'd get far better early elementary results simply by using effective teaching practices in our elementary schools, such as we do in the Arthur Academies.

But given the three choices, I'd say that the Head Start is the best option. At least it's targeted to the kids who are most in need - and most likely to fail. And it has the added benefit of keeping the dollars out of the education establishment and the teachers union!

This, of course, is the reason why the Head Start option will probably lose. The unions will get their way, and from their perspective, they like both lower class sizes AND all day kindergarten, because they both result in more dues paying members.