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Require kindergarteners to be 5 by Sept. 1


Thursday, August 12, 2010

San Francisco Chronicle

Diana Argenti and Natalie Bivas, two teachers who presented a petition to Sen. Simitian urging California to require children to be older when they begin kindergarten, explain in an opinion piece why the Legislature should set the cutoff to start school at age 5 by Sept. 1.

Over the past 10 years, kindergarten has become increasingly academic, though teachers still make time for art, music and play. For some children, it is too much.
They try to keep up, but fall behind right away. They keep lagging their classmates when they are 7 and 10 and 15 - or until they give up.

As teachers, it breaks our hearts, especially when their struggle has such as an obvious cause: They started kindergarten too young. It has an obvious remedy: Require kindergarteners to be 5 by Sept. 1. We’re calling on the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 1381, authored by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, that will make this overdue change.

 

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