Saying the bill represented a “completion of his administration’s eight year quest to bring full day kindergarten to every Indiana family,” Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law in March a funding bill that would accomplish the goal.
Helping to accomplish the goal was State Senator Ed Charbonneau, 5th District of Valparaiso. Charbonneau worked for years on education funding, which takes up more than 50 percent of the General Fund Budget.
We talked with Senator Charbonneau recently about the bill.
“We tweaked it a little bit last year, and put money in to pay for part of it. But finally this year we bit the bullet and finally funded full day kindergarten now,” Charbonneau said.
We asked Senator Charbonneau if this would guarantee full day kindergarten for every student eligible in the state.
“Indiana does not have mandatory kindergarten. School districts even now have treated Kindergarten different. Some have offered full day kindergarten for free, and other school districts have offered full day kindergarten but have charged parents a fee for that. So the effect will be different for different school districts,” Charbonneau said.
When asked if all districts should be offering kindergarten now, Governor Daniels said, “They’d better.”
