Is 4k child care?

On Sunday, the Journal Sentinel published an article about the battle in the state legislature about the battle over whether to extend funding for four year olds. One legislator expressed the fear that four year old kindergarten was "subsidized day care for certain children."

If the legislator was questioning the need for the four year old program--particularly for low-income children--his remarks missed the target. The typical low-income child enters school with substantial disadvantages compared to a typical middle-class student from a well-educated family. There have been several studies, for instance, documenting the strikings differences in the number of vocabulary words recognized.

If the need is clear, it is less clear how well the schools are meeting this need. The usual antipathy among the educational establishment towards measurement is even stronger when it comes to very young children. Systematic testing does not start until third grade. In the absence of data, my guess is that some schools do a good job while at others it really is just "child care." Unfortunately, this legislator seems to have missed the opportunity to push educators to say how they would measure results.