Full day kindergarten students should be fully counted in state support for average daily attendance. The estimated state cost for fully funding all day kindergarten is 70 million dollars. Maintaining the state s percentage of funding at the 1990-91 benchmark would cover this cost. Special Education Increased support for troubled and special needs students and for alternative programs and services is a need in every school district. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded the special education services schools must provide to include medical services that can be provided by a nurse or trained personnel.
Local accountability is as important as state accountability.
No child should be in a failing school. Boards of education should be empowered to intervene when a school s achievement declines, but the decline has not reached the point of state intervention. Immediate attention at the local level may enable the resources of the state to be reserved for those schools wherein local assistance has not been successful. Deference to the autonomy of schools should not supersede the community s right to action by local education leaders in behalf of students. We must preserve our education dollars.