After the state Legislature this week adopted a bill mandating that all kids complete one year of kindergarten before entering first grade, California took a step toward perhaps making kindergarten compulsory for students.
State Senate Bill 70 was approved by the state Senate on Monday and will now be signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom.
If passed into law, the measure would go into effect for the 2024–2025 academic year.
Assembly Measure 1444, a similar bill, was vetoed by the then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2014. Whether or not Newsom intends to sign SB 70 is unknown.
The California State Assembly enacted SB 70 earlier this month.
Children who don’t attend kindergarten lose out on crucial teachings and abilities that are beneficial for the remainder of their schooling, according to state senator Susan Rubio, who supported SB 70.
In a news release, Rubio said, “I have seen the devastating effect on young pupils who lose out on vital early education.”
Rubio has been a public school teacher for 17 years. Students in kindergarten who choose to participate are unprepared for the learning environment they will experience in elementary school because of their voluntary engagement.
California would become the 20th state to have a law mandating kindergarten attendance if Newsom were to approve it. Connecticut, Maryland, and Wisconsin are some of the other states that have this requirement.
According to the proposed legislation, kids may complete their kindergarten requirements at either a public or a private school, but transitional kindergarten won’t count.
In a news statement, Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District Alberto M. Carvalho expressed the district’s support for the legislation, stating that it would help level the playing field for kids from underrepresented groups.
According to research, kindergarten helps students learn crucial skills, closes opportunity gaps, and lowers chronic absenteeism, said Carvalho.
It is ensured that kids enjoy excellent academic, social, and developmentally appropriate learning experiences by mandating a full year of kindergarten.
In places where kindergarten is required, kids are “more likely to go to college and earn better incomes and are less likely to face poverty as adults,” according to the bill summary.
Along with L.A. Unified, proponents of kindergarten enrollment requirements include the California Teachers Association, the National Education Association (NEA), and Early Edge California.
The NEA claims that full-day kindergarten pupils have a far higher chance of excelling in math and reading.
The group highlighted a research that contrasted the exam results of kids who attended full-day kindergarten with those of kids who attended just half-day or not at all.
The NEA said in a policy brief that in one Indiana district, for instance, full-day kindergarten kids performed much better on fundamental skills tests in the third, fifth, and seventh grades than students who either attended half-day or did not attend kindergarten at all.
The bill’s opponents contend that mandating kindergarten would not necessarily solve problems in education like reading.
California’s severe reading and numeracy issues won’t be resolved by mandating kindergarten for the very tiny fraction of pupils who are not enrolled, according to Lance Izumi, senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute.
Izumi contends that it makes more sense to defer to parents’ judgement since children develop at various speeds.
Schools have seen a decrease in enrolment since the epidemic started.
According to U.S. Census statistics, there were twice as many homeschooling households nationally in the 2020–21 school year.
According to statistics from the California Department of Education, while kindergarten enrolment climbed in California in the 2021–2022 school year compared to the previous year, it is still much lower than the pre–pandemic level.