Kindergarten and Social Class

From a recent story in Willamette Week:

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo has made a huge mistake and now she wants the Legislature to fix it.

A key piece of Castillo's advice: to consider charging tuition for full-day kindergarten programs. Historically, public schools have provided free kindergarten for a half-day but more parents over time have asked districts for full-day services and Castillo was eager to meet that demand.

Castillo green-lighted the change without seeking a legal opinion affirming that pubilc school districts had the right to charge tuition. That was a mistake.

...

"A district school board cannot charge tuition for either an extended kindergarten program or a program that supplements a kindergarten program," acting legislative counsel Joan Robinson wrote Courtney in a Nov. 30 letter.

...

In Portland Public Schools, parents pay about $300 a month for the extra half-day. If students attend school for eight months, that's $2,400 per student and for 6,000 students the cost statewide would be $14.4 million. (In 2006-07, more than half those kids were in Multnomah County.)

Mayhap the reason charging tuition for public school became illegal in the first place was the giant class divide that it created between parents who could pay for their childrens' education and those who couldn't? Not to mention the fact that everyone pays taxes, so how could you justify the differing treatment?

It strikes me that charging parents for an extra serving of education is in the same vein - it will create two classes of students, to boot.

Bad idea. I hope the Leg doesn't make it legal.

Can you imagine if a local high school starting charging students for any classes taken after noon? It would be an outrage. I don't understand how this situation is different enough to justify the different treatment.

h/t CA.