Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

Of the panoply of reforms now being implemented in California schools, the ane affecting the state'due south youngest public school students passed almost unnoticed this fall.

For the first fourth dimension since the land enacted kindergarten legislation in 1891, California children take to be 5 years erstwhile by Sept. 1 to enroll in kindergarten.

The new cutoff date follows years of efforts in the state Legislature to move the date students were eligible for kindergarten to be in line with at to the lowest degree xx other states with a Sept. 1 cutoff date. The others have earlier or afterward cutoff dates, or go out it up to local school districts to make up one's mind.

The Sept. 1 deadline for regular kindergarten has been welcomed by the California Kindergarten Association. "I think it's a huge benefit to the children," said association lath member Michelle Jones. Having a smaller age spread in the class makes for a "more cohesive class," and makes it more likely that when students enter kindergarten they will be ready to exist "academically challenged," she said.

Blunting the touch of the new deadline is California'south additional kindergarten year, called "transitional kindergarten," for children whose 5th birthday falls somewhere between Sept. ii and Dec. 2. These are children who were previously eligible to enroll in regular kindergarten even though they had non yet turned 5.  They can at present attend transitional kindergarten, then enroll in regular kindergarten the following year.

"The real issue is not what historic period you enter kindergarten, but what opportunities do children have academically and socially earlier they enter school," said Deborah Stipek, an proficient on early learning and a professor at Stanford'southward Graduate Schoolhouse of Educational activity.

Withal, the new age requirement has non settled the more complex question: Is a stock-still cutoff date the best way to determine which children are ready for kindergarten? In fact, the minimum age for kindergarten has been a subject of considerable debate for more than a century. Over the years California lawmakers have tinkered with the kindergarten entry age at to the lowest degree nine times, according to a report by the California Research Bureau.

"The real issue is non what age y'all enter kindergarten, merely what opportunities practise children have academically and socially before they enter schoolhouse," said Deborah Stipek, an proficient on early on learning and Dean of Stanford's Graduate Schoolhouse of Education.

Especially during the preschool years, there are meaning developmental differences amidst children. Extensive research has shown that those differences are accentuated amid children from low-income backgrounds, who are far more likely to lag behind their more than flush peers in their readiness for kindergarten.

For example, Stipek pointed to a major gap in linguistic communication skills between children from poor and middle-income backgrounds as early as 18 months – a divergence tied to a range of factors, including how much time parents or caregivers are able to read and talk to a child.

Over the past decade the number of kindergartners in California schools climbed past more than than 50,000, an increase of near ten percent of total kindergarten enrollments. The increase coincided with one of the biggest budget crises in California'southward history, reinforcing calls dating dorsum at least 2 decades to bring California'south deadline for kindergarten in line with those of other states. In 1992, for example, then-Gov. Pete Wilson triggered a hailstorm of protest when he proposed rolling back the start date to Sept. i in an endeavour to save the state $335 million.

The transitional kindergarten program came nigh as a issue of legislation introduced four years ago by and then-state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto – but not for budgetary reasons. Simitian, now a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, said the 2010 Kindergarten Readiness Act was motivated by concerns that regular kindergarten had become more challenging and had in effect become what some educators call "the new first course."

Simitian said there was "a consensus among educators and in the research literature that youngsters who turned 5 by Dec. 2 were too oftentimes a footling young for 21st century kindergarten."

A report by the Legislative Annotator's Office at the time asserted that "information suggest children who are older tend to perform meliorate on standardized tests… Taken together, this body of research suggests that changing the kindergarten entry age would be by and large positive, with no overall negative upshot on children's academic achievement."

The advantage of having younger kindergarten children in a split classroom is clear to Jennifer Moless, a kindergarten instructor at Junipero Serra Simple School in San Francisco. She said she had noticed that the younger children in her classroom struggled with all-24-hour interval kindergarten: They needed nap time, assist with going to the toilet and they had difficulty separating from their parents.

She feared that their lack of readiness would become even more of an issue with the introduction of the more than demanding Common Core academic standards at present existence implemented in California schools.

The transitional kindergarten plan – effectively an extra form of public schooling offered gratuitous of charge to some iv-year-olds – was introduced gradually over the past three years, get-go in 2012-thirteen for children turning 5 in November, then in 2013-14 for those turning 5 in Oct, and this yr for all those turning v later on Sept. 1.

The state estimates that roughly 134,000 children take enrolled in transitional kindergarten this school yr.

The new Sept. 1 cutoff date for enrollment in regular kindergarten did non overly concern Megan Hooper, whose daughter Harlow turned v in October. That's considering she was eligible to enroll in a transitional kindergarten grade, which she now attends at Baker Uncomplicated School in San Jose.

One major attraction of transitional kindergarten is the financial relief it offers parents like herself, Hooper said. In her instance, instead of having to pay $ten,000 for another twelvemonth of private preschool, she could enroll her girl at no toll in a public school program. "It was a bully bargain," she said.

In the transitional kindergarten course at Zaida T. Rodriguez Early Education Schoolhouse in San Francisco's Mission district, consisting of 22 children whose birthdays fall between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2, there is a huge range in their abilities, said teacher Dayna Jean.

Half have never set foot in a preschool setting, many are English learners, and a few are way ahead of the curriculum Jean is teaching.

On a recent morning time, Jean read a story about saving a beached whale to her students,  who squirmed or saturday cross-legged on a carpet in front of her. "What rhymes with whale?" Jean called out exuberantly. The children yelled "snail" and "tail," a response that's office of the San Francisco Unified School Commune'due south transitional kindergarten curriculum to teach rhyming words.

"I accept some students who already know their whole alphabet, two students who can already count upwardly to 100, some who are writing their offset, middle and terminal proper noun," Jean said. At the other end of the spectrum, she said, "I accept some who have never been to schoolhouse before, accept never written their name, and are merely learning how to sit down in their chair."

Terminal year when she taught transitional kindergarten, Jean pulled together a small group of students who clearly were fix for learning well beyond the curriculum of the rest of the grade, and then they could thrive at their own pace. "I had one male child in transitional kindergarten last year who began at a beginning-grade reading level, and was reading at a third-grade level at the stop of the year," she said.

Her feel underscored the challenge of finding only the right fit for children at varying skill levels.

San Jose'due south Megan Hooper said that her daughter'south transitional kindergarten class taught skills her daughter had already acquired in preschool. She said her girl told her during the beginning week of school that she practiced writing her proper noun – a skill she had acquired at the first of preschool the previous year.

Vivian Hong experienced the issue every bit both a instructor and a parent. Hong is a showtime-form instructor at Junipero Serra Unproblematic Schoolhouse, and has twin children – a boy and a girl – who attended transitional kindergarten last twelvemonth. Their birthday is Nov. 26.

She is not and so sure a birthdate is the right way to determine when a educatee is ready for a particular grade. "For example, my daughter could have gone to kickoff grade, but transitional kindergarten was good for my son, considering he was a typical, rambunctious boy," and not quite ready for a more than structured kindergarten setting, she said.

While enquiry shows that, in general, delaying entry to kindergarten results in improved academic performance later on on, there are other variables that enter into the equation. A Rand Corporation report, for case, showed that delaying entrance to kindergarten "has a positive effect on test score gains in the early on schoolhouse years," merely that "the benefits … are even greater for children from poor families."

At the same time, poor families who have to delay sending their children to kindergarten may end upwards with "huge boosted child care costs" by having to pay for an extra year of preschool in lieu of a free year of kindergarten they may have been eligible for if their children had been built-in a few months earlier.

This story was updated on October 29 at 5:02 p.1000. to indicate that Deborah Stipek is Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

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