Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels put it on the table this week: He told the Indiana Education Roundtable that it is time for full-day kindergarten in Indiana.

Daniels has talked previously about taking the program statewide, when the state could afford it. But Wednesday’s statement to the state education panel can be seen as a signal that the campaign to persuade the 2007 Legislature to fund the program is on.

The proposal immediately picked up enough baggage to fill an elementary school, with hand-wringing about finding space and teachers for the expanded program, about maybe phasing it in, about maybe making kindergarten mandatory, about maybe it will be nothing more than full-day babysitting.

Enough!

That’s usually the way change is greeted in Indiana, with enough whining to keep us a decade or two behind more forward-thinking states. But Indiana cannot allow that to happen on this key education issue. Statewide, full-day kindergarten will give young Hoosier children a better opportunity for educational achievement than just about any other proposal now on the table or in the schools.

It will cost money – from $120 million to $150 million a year – but Indiana’s financial situation has improved dramatically since Daniels took office nearly two years ago. Otherwise, Daniels wouldn’t be stoking the fires prior to the November election and the 2007 legislative session.

The concern we consider most valid is that space in some schools might be limited. Now, with half-day kindergarten, they may have one group in the morning and another in the afternoon, using the same kindergarten room. With full-day, they would likely have all of those children (numberswise) using the same space.

To those schools, we would simply say, this program is too important to children to put it on the shelf while you figure out your space situation.

To those who say, first make kindergarten mandatory in Indiana, we would suggest you have the cart before the horse. We suspect there are many children who do not attend half-day kindergarten because their parent cannot, for genuine reasons of jobs or transportation, get them home in the morning from the first session or to school for the second session.

For many of those types of families, full-day kindergarten would likely solve their transportation problems. Find that out first, with full-day kindergarten under the belt, before deciding whether it should be mandatory. Bring it up now and it might well complicate the chances of full-day kindergarten being approved.

And finally, to those who say that full-day kindergarten is merely full-day babysitting, we would suggest you talk to first-grade teachers in the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp.

Some of them reported recently that they can see a difference between children coming into their classes who attended a full-day program and those the last three years who have had only half-day kindergarten.

The teachers say the difference is that half-day children are not as academically prepared as they should be, and they are slower to adjust to the full day of school.

One teacher said that when the EVSC had full-day kindergarten, first-graders could write one, two or three good sentences, and now they cannot. Half-day classes simply do not have the time for mastering such skills.

But to our point: If those kindergarten teachers were only babysitting, we wouldn’t even be talking about whether the children could write sentences. They’d be coloring pictures and watching movies.

Day care is no longer an option for kindergarten, given the importance of early childhood education. We know now that these are the years in which children have significant brain and intellectual development. And full-day kindergarten offers them the best opportunity for achieving maximum development.

For those Hoosier children who are still in diapers or those aged 4 and younger, this issue represents the opportunity of a lifetime.

So consider the campaign on. Let your legislators and candidates for their offices know what you think about education in Indiana.

And if you believe, as we do, in the importance of early childhood education, tell them it is time for Indiana to think bold about full-day kindergarten.