While one senator wants to complete the expansion of full-day kindergarten in the next budget, another is saying the state should spend the money on private school vouchers because full-day kindergarten programs harm students.

Although nearly every study comparing full- and half-day kindergarten programs shows that students attending full-day classes receive short-term achievement gains, no study, says Sen. John Huppenthal, R-20, shows that those gains remain as the child progresses through school. He doesn’t envision Arizona as breaking that mold.

“There’s nothing to suggest we’re going to get better results,” he said.

However, Sen. Toni Hellon, chairman of the Senate K-12 Education Committee, says common sense dictates that any advantage gained would eventually diminish.

“We’re expecting these students to hold that edge through what≠ College≠” the District 26 Republican said.

Ms. Hellon also said parents are getting restless and many no longer want to wait for the state to slowly expand the program.

“I think it’s time to get this all done [at once] instead of dragging it out year to year,” she said. “I think it’s time, especially with state revenues looking up.”

In media reports earlier this month, Governor Napolitano was said to be seeking between $75 million and $100 million to expand full-day kindergarten in the budget for fiscal 2007, which begins July 1, 2006.

Mr. Huppenthal says a study published in July 2004 is a “cornerstone” in efforts to compare full- and half-day kindergarten and it found that the students who attended a school with a full-day program actually scored worse — albeit, slightly — on reading, math and science achievement exams at the end of third grade.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Education, tracked the kindergarten class of 1998-99 through the end of fifth grade in an attempt to explore children’s educational growth and development. The study tracked 22,782 students in 1,277 schools nationwide and is considered the largest study of its kind.

In July 2004, the study’s findings were released from the spring of 2002, when the students were completing third grade. Although the report’s summary says there were no significant differences between the educational gains made by full- and half-day kindergarten students — a fact in itself, Mr. Huppenthal says, that is a testament to his assertion the program doesn’t benefit students — the data in the report show that the students who attended full-day programs lagged behind their half-day counterparts in reading, writing and science.

“To me, the whole idea of selling full-day kindergarten just isn’t there,” Mr. Huppenthal said.

He said the state ought to spend its money on a school choice program that would provide parents vouchers to send their children to private schools.

Ms. Hellon says the common sense approach to preparing young students for the third grade AIMS test is to educate them as much and as early as possible. Discrediting full-day kindergarten programs because of one study, she said, loses sight of the educational and social benefits the children have gained.

Likewise, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne says the results of the ECLS report aren’t the end-all-be-all of comparing the two kindergarten models.

“My personal view is that there’s not enough studies to reach a conclusion on that, especially in Arizona today,” he said.

What studies say

The Department of Education recently released a comprehensive review of existing research comparing full- and half-day kindergarten programs across the country. The department found “that there are an insufficient number of well-designed research studies documenting the duration of full-day kindergarten benefits beyond second grade. The lack of sufficient data creates a challenge for making sound conclusions related to students’ academic outcomes.”

Rep. Mark Anderson, House Education K-12 Committee chairman, says the lack of any conclusive data concerning how students perform past the second grade leaves legislators without a clear solution, other than doing what voters want, and he says they want full-day kindergarten.

“We’re here to do the best we can to do what people want us to do,” the District 18 Republican said. “If people want it, we’re going to do that.”