COMPULSORY KINDERGARTEN

Compulsory Kindergarten is a wacky idea
Wacky Ideas: What do High Heels and Compulsory Kindergarten Have in Common?
by Chris Cardiff

Where do wacky ideas come from? And more importantly, how come some of them actually catch on and spread, like some viral disease?

Who came up with the idea of having women walk around on their tip toes in devices called "high heels"? While Chinese foot-binding was insane, high heels are just wacky.

Does anyone remember the Cabbage Patch dolls? For a mercifully short period it was like mass hysteria swept the nation as everyone tried to obtain these odd-looking fetishes.

And what about soccer? I mean the kicking part makes sense but deliberately bopping a speeding soccer ball with your head? The guy who thought that one up must have already had his gray matter jarred loose.

Compulsory Kindergarten is another one of these wacky ideas. Unfortunately it's just an extension of another wacky idea that's already caught on, the idea of compulsory school attendance. Unlike some fads, there is a method behind the seeming madness of institutionalizing children at younger and younger ages. To peer behind the curtain, all we have to do is look at who is pushing AB 634, the latest legislative attempt to extend mandatory school attendance to Kindergarten.

The answer can be found in a recent issue of California Educator, the monthly magazine of the California Teachers Association. There are five feature articles focusing on the need for universal preschool in California with the cover story drawing the connection between universal preschool and mandatory kindergarten. The public relations aspect of this campaign is built around the thought expressed by one kindergarten teacher in the article: "I see kids coming to kindergarten less and less prepared... only half knew their colors, recognized some numbers or recognized their own name in print."

Of course most parents will recognize the speciousness of an arbitrary standard universally applied to all children. It is the one-size-fits-all mentality of institutional schooling scaled down for three-year-olds. You can also see this sort of logic extended to earlier and earlier ages. Eventually, we'll be reading quotes from preschool teachers advocating universal infancy school because "more and more kids are coming to preschool without being able to say 'mama' or eat solids."

But again, this is just the PR campaign. Behind the PR campaign is just naked economic self-interest. From the union's perspective it's as simple as ABC: more years of school means more teachers means more union dues means higher union official salaries and greater union political influence. We all look out for our own economic self-interest so you can't really blame them for trying. But it doesn't mean we have to let them get away with it.

Delaine Eastin, California's Superintendent of Public Education, closes the series of articles with this comment: "We started compulsory education in 1865 [in California], but we still seem stuck in that kind of thinking ... there is a moral imperative for states to take a bigger responsibility in dreaming a big dream for kids."

I agree with Eastin to the degree that we still seem stuck with the 1865 idea of compulsory education. But unlike her dream of extending it to kindergarten and preschool, I'd like to see us come unstuck in the other direction and start gradually repealing compulsory school attendance. Women escaped fashion slavery, the Cabbage Patch insanity died, and parents no longer encourage their children to "head" in soccer. However, the wackiness of compulsory school attendance is still with us, promoted by an entrenched special interest group.

It's time to stop this nonsense and start reversing this wacky idea.

Chris Cardiff is a homeschooling father of three spirited girls, former Trustee for the California Homeschool Network and a vice president of AOL. None of these groups - including his family - necessarily endorses his views.