{"id":31781,"date":"2019-08-14T16:35:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T21:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=31781"},"modified":"2019-08-15T12:07:28","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T17:07:28","slug":"raising-the-kindergarten-age-in-oklahoma-may-leave-some-children-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2019\/08\/14\/raising-the-kindergarten-age-in-oklahoma-may-leave-some-children-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising the kindergarten age in Oklahoma may leave some children out"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_31785\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-31785\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-672x504.jpg 672w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-620x465.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-1376x1032.jpg 1376w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-1044x783.jpg 1044w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-632x474.jpg 632w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1803-1-536x402.jpg 536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Lenora LaVictoire \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heather Canales reads to children in a pre-kindergarten class at WovenLife, which offers early childhood development in Oklahoma City. Photo taken on August 1, 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A controversial proposal in the Oklahoma state legislature would delay the age kids would be eligible to start kindergarten and put Oklahoma on-trend with dozens of other states. But some childhood experts say the trend may not serve Oklahoma kids well.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/665793965&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=false&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=false&visual=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/span><!--more--><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ila Ison\u2019s birthday is August 28. She\u2019s turning four, and she starts pre-K at a private school this week.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After Pre-K, her parents want to send her to kindergarten in Edmond Public Schools.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oklegislature.gov\/AdvancedSearchForm.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">proposal<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> state lawmakers are considering would have changed the Ison\u2019s plans. Ila and thousands of other children born in August would have to wait one more year before enrolling in kindergarten.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Supporters say this would make for more mature classes, making it easier on kindergarten teachers.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a committee hearing, the author of the legislation, Senator Greg McCortney, cited data from the State Board of Education that shows roughly 40 percent of children who repeated pre-K in the last five years was born in July or August.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn the end, when looking at running this bill, I had to decide if schools were going to be for education or if schools were going to be for social services,\u201d said McCortney. \u201cIf we have kids that need social services we need to stop forcing that into our school system and start taking care of that through the human services division of our government.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jonathan Small with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank, said making kids repeat grades is bad for everyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat\u2019s an unfortunate circumstance because, one, we\u2019ve subjected a child to an environment they really weren\u2019t ready for yet,\u201d said Small. \u201cAnd, two, we\u2019ve diverted resources \u2014 precious resources \u2014 away from students who were ready.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kids repeating grades are expensive. Since the 1970s, states have been delaying when kids can start.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1975, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ecs.org\/clearinghouse\/73\/67\/7367.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">only nine states required that kids be five-years-old when they start kindergarten<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. As of 2010, 30 states made their kindergarten cutoff date sometime in September.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diane Horm is the director of the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early Childhood Education Institute in Tulsa and an early childhood education professor at the University of Oklahoma. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She says there will always be a maturity gap with children in the classroom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if your date is June 1st, July 1st, August 1st, September 1st \u2014 you\u2019re always going to have older or younger kids that you\u2019re going to deal with,\u201d Horm said. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cT<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he idea that you\u2019re going to hold off at an early age some type of an intervention that we want kids to prosper from just doesn\u2019t make any sense to me.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Horm said that more than half of Oklahoma\u2019s children under age six are low income. Another year at home burdens families with another year of costly childcare or income loss as one parent stays home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn a state where we have high rates of childhood poverty and we have high rates of childhood <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/violenceprevention\/childabuseandneglect\/acestudy\/index.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ACEs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> those kids need to get in a system that\u2019s going to attend to their needs and get them the services they need, those educational and social services\u2014 and for many kids that system is school,\u201d said Horm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_31786\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1600px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-31786\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-672x504.jpg 672w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-620x465.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-1376x1032.jpg 1376w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-1044x783.jpg 1044w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-632x474.jpg 632w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_1792-536x402.jpg 536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Lenora LaVictoire \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pre-kindergarteners gather to read before storytime at WovenLife in Oklahoma City. Aug. 1, 2019<\/p>\n<\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research has found that in Oklahoma, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tulsaworld.com\/news\/state-and-regional\/special-report-oklahoma-leads-the-nation-in-childhood-trauma-how\/collection_7089b3a4-4b3f-5d9d-987d-58f32653a390.html#3\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">children are more likely to suffer from early childhood trauma than any other state in the nation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 trauma that comes from violence in the home or from mental and physical abuse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paula Gates is the director of early childhood services at Sunbeam Family Services. With funding from the federal government&#8217;s Head Start program, they serve almost 800 children in the Oklahoma City area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Gates says this type of legislation would hit rural areas the most, where childcare options can be limited to family members and daycares.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf you\u2019re going to isolate a child at their 80-year-old grandmother\u2019s (house) for another year, in rural Oklahoma, they\u2019re not getting those needs met,\u201d Gates said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gates agrees with McCortney that more money for social services would help Oklahoma\u2019s kids.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She references the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/heckmanequation.org\/resource\/research-summary-lifecycle-benefits-influential-early-childhood-program\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heckman equation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Nobel laureate James Heckman, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFor every dollar spent on young children there\u2019s a 13 dollar return later,\u201d Gates said.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bill changing the age for starting kindergarten remains active in the state legislature. Senator McCortney did not respond to requests for comment about his plans for the legislation when the session starts in February. McCortney authored similar legislation in the 2018 session. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A controversial proposal in the Oklahoma state legislature would delay the age kids would be eligible to start kindergarten and put Oklahoma on-trend with dozens of other states. But some childhood experts say the trend may not serve Oklahoma kids well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":31785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[364,36,720,752,1029],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31781"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31792,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31781\/revisions\/31792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}