Hebron Dollars & Sense
Does Hebron Need All Day Kindergarten? Does All Day Kindergarten Equate to Improved Mastery Test Results?
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- Created on Friday, 22 January 2010 05:31
There is a new mantra going around Hebron that all day kindergarten gives participating students in the current "lottery" system-based all day kindergarten an "advantage," as opposed to those children who don't attend all day kindergarten.
But is that really true?
Last year, a Hebron BOE board member, in a public meeting, admitted that the BOE had no measures of "success" with all day kindergarten, nor had they been collecting data ("We're currently working on developing measurements"), nor is all day Kindergarten required by the State Department of Education (despite what you may think or have been told), nor are there any standardized tests to measure the value of all day Kindergarten.
But how about considering new data, compiled the week of January 11, 2010, that has just been released regarding State of Connecticut published results???? Keep in mind that the State of Connecticut only starts testing children in the 3rd grade....
- 6 out of the top 10 3rd grade CMT math performance schools only offer half-day Kindergarten, and only 1 out of the top 10 3rd grade CMT math performance schools offer full-day Kindergarten
- 7 out of the top 10 3rd grade CMT reading performance schools only offer half-day Kindergarten, and only 2 out of the top 10 3rd grade CMT reading performance schools offer full-day Kindergarten
- 7 out of the top 10 3rd grade CMT writing performance schools only offer half-day Kindergarten, and only 2 out of the top 10 3rd grade CMT writing performance schools offer full-day Kindergarten
And how about this data from the same January 2010 data analysis?
- 8 out of the bottom 10 3rd grade CMT math performance schools offer full-day Kindergarten, and none of the bottom 10 3rd grade CMT math performance schools offer only half-day Kindergarten
- 9 out of the bottom 10 3rd grade CMT reading performance schools offer full-day Kindergarten, and none of the bottom 10 3rd grade CMT reading performance schools offer only half-day Kindergarten
- 7 out of the bottom 10 3rd grade CMT writing performance schools offer full-day Kindergarten, and only 1 of the bottom 10 3rd grade CMT writing performance schools offer only half-day Kindergarten
With this kind of information available, why would the Hebron Board of Education burden taxpayers in such a difficult year with a 4% budget increase, most of which involves the cost of adding all day kindergarten???? The Hebron Board of Selectmen and Hebron Board of Finance have already specifically requested that all departments (including RHAM) come in with a FLAT (i.e., 0%) budget increase due to the decrease in revenues?
Even if everyone plays nice and comes in with a 0% budget increase, Hebron taxpayers are still looking at a tax increase because of the decline in revenues! Think about it....