My Day in the Senate

When the All-Day Kindergarten issue was debated in the Senate I went and testified against the need for that state provided service.

During my argument I told how I had learned to read in the first grade and by the end of the second grade I had read over a hundred books. We know this is true for my second grade teacher, Ruby Huddleston, required all of us to fill out a 3x5 index card with a brief outline of each book we had read. I had filled out two packets of cards by the end of the second year.

I then used that to contrast with the Indiana school system that guarantees to not teach anyone to read, in the Indiana P-16 Plan, before the end of the third grade. And this is the school system that wants us to give them our children for four years when they cannot teach their present students to read before the end of the third grade.

There was a second point of contention. During the debate not one teacher or administrator who testified for the All-Day Kindergarten would estimate what it would cost. Let me show you just what they were asking for:

In Indiana the school system is funded at about $8,000 per student. That’s what the school system was looking to receive and why they want the Kindergarten so badly. Look at the numbers:

If 10,000 students show up that it Eighty million dollars. If 20,000 show up that is $160 million dollars. Now, if 100,000 students show up that is $800 million. That’s what they were asking to receive. Yet Kindergarten students are already adequately served. In Indianapolis alone, there are almost a hundred pre-school and Kindergarten’s advertised in the yellow pages alone. Let’s look at some of the alternatives.

Let’s assume that $800 million is the figure. That means 100,000 students show up to be educated in the public schools if All-Day Kindergarten is adopted. What could be bought for that. Let’s look:

McGuffey Readers sell at about $100 per set. We could buy every student in the Indiana public school system a set of McGuffey Readers and have $700 million left over. Every student could then read.

Computers bought in huge bulk can be bought for about $500 each. We could buy every student in the Indiana public school system a computer and have $300 million left over.

Once we have a computer in the hands of every student we can then change to ebooks and every student can study on line. If a page or a chapter needs to be printed he can do that at the cost of about two cents per page. And guess what. Then you and I can read the textbooks and find if anything important about our history has been omitted from the textbooks. What a marvelous idea. We save tons of money and get to review the textbooks. See my next editorial.