The Review Journal’s editorial page saw right through it, but the Clark County School District offered some interesting responses to my press release that their published study results had neglected to include the very clear finding that full-day kindergarten hurt the 2nd grade performance of non “FRL” students, compared to students who did not go to kindergarten.

• my misunderstanding of the data led me to “erroneous conclusions.”
• the only “erroneous conclusion” specificied was my assumption that students who weren’t on the free or reduced lunch program — my definition of “at risk” — were of moderate or higher income.
• In its news release, the district states that the “at risk” category in the study is based on a literacy assessment, rather than income status.

Here is the Review Journal’s coverage of the allegations. Here is the the school district’s press release in it’s entirety. Here is the “smoking gun” - the LCB findings that the district covered up the decreased performance for middle and upper class children who had full-day kindergarten.

An interesting side-note - none of the other mainstream media - or left-wing bloggers - have covered this story so far, probably because it provides powerful evidence against expanding full-day kindergarten which they support.

Meanwhile, the district says that some poor families don’t sign up for FRL, therefore I am wrong to describe the non-FRL students as coming from middle and upper class homes, that’s highly unlikely. Once a particular school reaches a certain percentage of it’s children who are eligible for FRL, then each teacher gets more compensation, and the entire school gets awarded cash from the federal government (Title I). No marketing is as aggressive as a school’s marketing of the FRL program. Very, very few families escape their dragnet, and once in their dragnet, very few find their pride sufficient to keep the school at bay.

Another remarkably disingenuous aspect of the CCSD study was redefining the term “at-risk.” Historically and legally, it has always been associated with family wealth of students. Now, along comes CCSD who correlates it to test performance. It’s another form of statistical deception to define and report on your test population by their outcome on the test.

I want my children and grandchildren to attend a school district that doesn’t have a bevy of PR professionals on full-time, six figure staff.

In the end, this study shows that we’re missing some students who might initially benefit from full day kindergarten, and educating others who won’t. Currently, all students at school who have a certain percentage or more of FRL students get full day kindergarten, and schools that don’t have enough FRL students (but still have some) do not.

We ought to address CCSD’s findings by holding full day kindergarten for students eligible for FRL, rather than for schools who reach a certain percentage of students eligible for FRL.

Update (3/13/07) Dr. Craig Kadlub, one of the Clark County School District’s PR professionals, testified today that there are no PR professionals on staff, none of them make six figures, and the communications office is smaller than similar school districts. He notes that those in the communications office have degrees in things other than “public relations.” He made these comments in testifying against a bill that would create an interim committee to plan how to deconsolidate the Clark County School District.

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