Kindergarten Readiness Measure Clears Assembly Panel
The CTA-sponsored measure that would ensure that kindergarteners are prepared to meet the challenges of the modern classroom cleared the Assembly Education Committee on April 25 by a 6-3 vote. The committee’s passage of AB 1236, by Assembly Member Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo), came after CTA President Barbara E. Kerr testified before the panel, telling lawmakers that “AB 1236 will help prepare all students for these challenges and make sure they are ready for kindergarten. It will provide all California children with an equal opportunity to succeed.”
AB 1236 now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where it could see its next consideration as early as May.
AB 1236 has three major components. It would in effect make kindergarten attendance mandatory for all children in 2010 by reducing the compulsory age for school from the current six years of age to five years. AB 1236 would also, beginning in 2011, change the kindergarten entry age from five years old by December 2nd to five years old by September 1st. In addition, AB 1236 would provide developmentally appropriate kindergarten-readiness classes within our public school system for all children too young to begin kindergarten – both four and five-year-olds. The bill would ensure that all children would have the benefit of a voluntary new kindergarten readiness program that would be taught by certificated educators. The new half-day educational program would coordinate with daycare so that children could have a full day of activities. The program would provide developmentally appropriate educational activities that would help prepare students for kindergarten work. It would be open to all students in the year before they are eligible for kindergarten.
Taken together, the bill’s provisions are designed to ensure that students are developmentally ready to tackle the increasingly tough academic challenges facing them in the modern kindergarten classroom. Today, the state requires kindergarteners to master a host of skills, including literacy and mathematical literacy skills.
Under current law, California is one of only four states in the nation that allow youngsters to start kindergarten as early as four-years-and six months of age (if they are attending a year-round school).
• CTA Members:
Continue contacting your Assembly Members and state Senators urging them to sign onto AB 1236 as co-authors and to vote for it when it reaches them by writing c/o The State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814.