From: Roy Hanson — Family Protection Ministries and Mike Smith — HSLDA
Bill: AB 1444 (as amended 4/22/14) – Mandatory Kindergarten
Author: State Assemblymember Joan Buchanan
Position: Strongly OPPOSE
Status: Passed California State Assembly with 54 out of 80 votes, with 2 Democrats voting against it and two Republicans voting for it.
AB 1444 Is Now In The California State Senate.
Quickly pass this alert on to others who might respond and then take the suggested action below.
Summary of Concern:
Under AB 1444, parents who would have chosen to delay their child’s entrance into formal education and skip kindergarten, would be forced to choose between either:
(a) starting their child’s formal education one year earlier, before they feel it is best for their child, or
(b) graduating their child a year later than they would under current law.
This is because 13 years of schooling would be required under AB 1444 rather than the current 12 years of schooling.
The requirements of AB 1444 would apply to all pupils in both public schools and in private schools, including homeschools.
Advocates of extending government control of all children from birth will be able to use passage of AB 1444 as an incremental step toward establishing seamless, cradle-to-grave government-controlled education and development programs for all children.
Passage of AB 1444 would be followed by the next incremental legislative step — making institutionalized preschool (pre-kindergarten) for every 3 and 4 year-old child universally available to all children and then the next step – making it universally mandatory for every 3 and 4 year-old child.
Information Included In This E-mail:
A. Action Item
B. Opposition Points
C. Summary
A. Action Item:
WRITE Immediately (this week, June 9-14) the member of the California State Senate that represents your district (Not US Senators Feinstein or Boxer). Please use this link to discover who your California State Senator is: http://bit.ly/1bK1fqu.
Legislators know that every letter they receive represents at least 100 voters in their district who have the same point of view.
Watch for our next Action Alert just before the first hearing in the State Senate. This next Action Alert will be requesting urgent phone calls to committee members.
Suggested Format For Letters:
The Honorable (first & last name)
California State Senate
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
Salutation: Dear Senator (last name)
“Please vote no on AB 1444 as amended. I oppose mandatory Kindergarten. Please keep Kindergarten voluntary.”
(You may use one or more of the “Opposition Points to Share with Legislators” stated below in your letter to your California State Senator.)
Thank you.”
Sincerely,
(Your Name) (Be sure to include your full address and print or type your first and last names.)
Notes:
* Write as a parent and citizen. This bill directly affects all families with young children.
* Emails are a waste of time as they are rarely read in Legislative offices.
* Do not disclose the source of this Alert. All bills are available on the Internet.
* Pass this on to your friends, church, school, and group.
* Pray for a proper outcome.
B. Opposition Points:
AB 1444 would damage children. Beginning formal education at age 5 or younger causes unintended harmful consequences to children, some of which last a lifetime. Research* indicates that early formal childhood education not only causes both physical and behavioral long-term problems but that it also does not improve the child’s potential for being a better student later on.
Research http://www.childandfamilyprotection.org/Early-Childhood-Education-Research-Summaries.html demonstrates that:
Gains experienced by children who began their formal education at age 5 (or younger) disappear in just a few years.
These same children, however, experience long-lasting adverse effects on their physical, behavioral, and educational development, including life-long vision impairment, and for many, detriments to mathematics and nonacademic readiness skills.
Boys are especially damaged by early entrance (age 5 and younger) into formal education. Boys’ cognitive and verbal skill development significantly lags behind that of girls at this age. As a result, boys do not do as well in the early years, at which time many experience failures leading to frustration, and for some, substance abuse and later criminal behavior.
For the sake of your own children, every parent should read “Early Childhood Education: Research Summaries of the Effects of Universal Kindergarten” Updated 2014 at http://www.childandfamilyprotection.org/Early-Childhood-Education-Research-Summaries.html.
AB 1444 would diminish the parental rights of all parents. Under AB 1444, parents who choose to delay their child’s entrance into kindergarten will be forced to undergo a time and financial penalty of adding a year of required schooling before graduation. Enrollment into kindergarten prior to the first grade must remain optional for parents.
AB 1444 would decrease beneficial parental contact with their children. An extra year of development outside of school can be critical for a child at this early age. Carl Zinsmeister, Adjunct Research Associate at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, says, “Declining parental attachment is an extremely serious risk to children today. The verdict of enormous psychological literature is that time spent with the parent is the very clearest correlate of healthy child development.” Parents should continue to have the authority to decide what is best for their children.
C. SUMMARY:
* Rushing children into formal education by effectively lowering the age at which children begin formal education by mandating Kindergarten will exact a heavy toll on the development of many children and will weaken the role of parents in their lives. This is diametrically opposed to the message parents are routinely given, that parents need to be more involved in their children’s lives. However, parents cannot be more involved when the state either encourages or requires children to be with their parents for less time. Research supports later rather than earlier entry of children into institutionalized settings for educational development to be the most beneficial.
* AB 1444 encroaches on the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. It ignores the long-standing presumption that parents act in the best interest of their children, by requiring parents to enroll their children in Kindergarten rather than allowing them the choice specified in current law. It disregards the parent’s understanding of what would be the best course of action for his own child’s education and development. It is a detrimental one-size-fits-all mandate that would be forced upon all children by the government.