Ready to learn

An impressive finding from the Bangor School Department last week offers an important opportunity for Maine’s future. Its results in a study of first-graders suggest that schools can take a giant step toward having more of its children ready to learn by the end of kindergarten.

As with most substantial reform in education, there’s no magic in the Bangor findings. Robert Ervin, assistant superintendent of schools, looked at the level of achievement between students who completed the city’s kindergarten program, when it was half day in 1998 and when it was full day in 1999. He randomly chose 50 students from each of the two years, reviewed their scores on standardized tests and concluded that the average full-day kindergartener scored 24 percentage points better than the average half-day kindergartener. The tests covered areas such as beginning reading, story comprehension and quantitative skills. Dr. Ervin’s finding is not simply that children who are in school all day learn more, but that now far more pupils are academically ready for first grade.

This is valuable information because it means that Bangor, or any other school system, might have a way to significantly reduce the number of children who start off school behind their peers and, perhaps, never catch up. Providing an early chance to succeed — and succeed in real, age-appropriate class work and not just esteem-boosting programs — is one of the more important things schools can do for pupils. Especially interesting to Bangor, which emphasizes reading skills in the early grades, were the improved results in mathematics when pupils had the extra time provided by the full-day class.

Many school directs continue to hold half-day kindergarten classes. Sometimes that is the will of parents who think a half day is plenty, but sometimes it is a decision based on a lack of money. State funding barely allows schools to afford the programs they have; essentially doubling their kindergarten time would be quite an expense. Legislators may ask, however, about the costs saved by the reduced need for remedial help and, more importantly, about the benefits gained by having many more students on the successful path of learning.

Any bright first-grader might conclude that this is an investment worth making.