Testimony before the NGA Task Force on School Readiness

Al Shanker discusses the problems with children's level of school-readiness. He states that simply promoting students to the next grade because of their age is counter productive. He advocates for longer kindergarten programs to ensure basic school-readiness. He also advocates for public pre-school programs. Shanker also notes that investing in such programs for young children will save the money that is invested in safety net programs at a later age, and will likely have a greater effect than later programs. He urges that services to youth be seen as welfare issues and not be isolated within the education system which is not adequately equipped to deal with all of them. He states that multiple agencies provide a variety of services, but that too often attempts at integrating these to a more centralized provider results in reduction of services. He urges that some solution be found that would involve parents and children being educated together through a system not divided among multiple governmental agencies.

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