MADISON - The state would require 5-year-olds to attend school under a bill introduced earlier this week in the Legislature.

Two Racine lawmakers, Sen. John Lehman, D-Racine and Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, co-sponsored the bill that would require children to complete 5-year-old kindergarten as a prerequisite to being admitted to first grade in a public school, including a charter school, beginning in the 2011−12 school year.

Current state law requires compulsory education for children between the ages of six and 18. Kindergarten for 4- and 5-year-olds is optional in Wisconsin. The state does not require students to attend kindergarten to get into first grade.

Lehman said the main purpose of that bill is to get at the problem of school districts making resources available for 5-year-olds, parents enrolling their children and then not sending them to school.

"I think we need to be clear with parents, if you enroll your child then they ought to be attending," Lehman said.

Chuck Leonard said he's pleased to hear about the bill that has just started making its way through the Legislature.

Kindergarten should be mandatory for 5-year-olds, said Leonard, supervisor of kindergarten programs for the Racine Unified School District, the fourth largest district in the state.

There wouldn't be a significant number of additional students entering the district if such a law was passed, Leonard said. The district offers full-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds in each of its 20 elementary schools. As of January 2009, the district enrolled 1,530 students in 5-year-old kindergarten.

Leonard sees another benefit to making kindergarten mandatory for 5-year-olds.

"For 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten, we don't have any teeth. Some parents enroll and then just decide to keep their children home for a week," Leonard said. "Once it becomes mandatory attendance will improve. Therefore achievement will improve if we can keep them in school."

There is definite proof about the value of early childhood education, Lehman said. What is not known is the number of families that don't currently send their children to 5-year-old kindergarten.

Lehman wonders whether these families would feel compelled to enroll their children or whether they would be ill at ease asking for an exemption.

The bill being proposed in Wisconsin would permit a school board and the operator of an independent charter school to establish policies, standards, conditions and procedures for the parent or guardian of a child to seek an exemption from the requirement that the child complete kindergarten.

The bill also requires a child who is enrolled in 5-year-old kindergarten in a public or private school to regularly attend kindergarten during the school year.

More than 60,000 students were enrolled in 5-year-old kindergarten in the state as of January 2009, according to Patrick Gasper, spokesman for the Department of Public Instruction. Almost all of the state's 426 school districts offer kindergarten, Gasper said.

Only eight states currently require compulsory public schooling to begin at five years old, including Arkansas, Connecticut and Maryland.

However, 42 states require school districts to offer kindergarten, according to Debra Ackerman, associate research director for the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.

An estimated 98 percent of children in the United States already attend kindergarten, Ackerman said.

"It may be seen as a benefit to districts because if it is mandated that children must attend kindergarten then districts will be required to fund it," Ackerman said.

"An unfunded mandate is always problematic. If they're going to make kindergarten attendance compulsory, but don't give the necessary funds, that would be problematic."

Lawmakers don't yet know what kind of financial impact the bill might have on the state's school districts. A fiscal estimate of the proposed bill is being prepared.

Supporters of the bill also see an educational advantage to extending the compulsory education law.

"If we're serious about closing the achievement gap all the evidence points to starting earlier," Mason said. "This sort of just puts that into place as part of our requirement to provide an adequate education to every child."

A public hearing on the bill is expected in the future. The bill was sent to the Senate Education Committee. Lehman is chairman of the committee.

Kindergarten enrollment

WHAT: Racine Unified School District 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten registration

WHEN: Begins Wednesday, March 4

WHERE: Parents of children eligible for 4-year-old half-day kindergarten or 5-year-old full day kindergarten in September of 2009 are asked to register their children at their home school.

For more information, contact (262) 631-7194 or (262) 664-8200 or check the district's Web site http://www.racine.k12.wi.us