Letter: Kindergarten funds can be better used

Friday, March 9, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

Forget about all-day kindergarten. It will consume one-thirteenth of all free public education expenditures including adding more teachers, staff, student transportation costs, additional classroom construction and maintenance expenses. Just what is the benefit of kindergarten to the student? Ask adults who entered the first grade in parochial school at age 5. Most, if not all, will say that skipping kindergarten and going directly into the first grade was a not difficult process.

A more cost-efficient approach is to enroll all students into the first grade at age 5 and expand student learning time, either by extending the school day or year by one-thirteenth for some or all grades. In addition, consider increasing teacher's salaries by spreading those formerly budgeted kindergarten funds across the board. One additional benefit is that students won't begin driving to school until they are juniors in high school.

There are a lot of viable options other than the standard "everybody does kindergarten" approach to education. We need to be exploring them; our children deserve it.

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas