Bob Beers State senator says "too much emphasis" is placed on public relations and spin

One of the Clark County School District's chief critics said Friday that a district study used to bolster the argument for full-day kindergarten showed that students who were not "at risk" who attended full-day kindergarten fared worse than students who attended just half days.

State Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, said Friday that the second-graders included in the study who were not from low-income families and who attended full-day kindergarten actually fared 3 percentage points worse than second-graders who attended half-day kindergarten classes.

Beers, who sent out a news release Friday morning, said the district's own statistics indicate that full-day kindergarten is not as beneficial as its representatives had led the public to believe.

"There's too much emphasis (from the district) on public relations and spin," Beers said. "They've always attempted to mislead the Legislature, but this is the first time they've done it with hard numbers that we forced them to give to us."

Beers, who said he has never seen a copy of the study, said the 3 point figure comes from researchers with the Legislative Counsel Bureau. However, it was verified by district lobbyist Craig Kadlub.

In response, the district issued its own news release Friday, stating that Beers' misunderstanding of the data led him to "erroneous conclusions."

Funding and the expansion of full-day kindergarten have led to heated and partisan debate in the Legislature. Many Democrats endorse expanding full-day kindergarten to elementary schools statewide. It is currently available at some low-income schools. Many Republicans, including Gov. Jim Gibbons, generally favor limiting the program to low-income schools while waiting for more conclusive evidence.

The district's study, released Feb. 5., assessed 1,233 students in the second grade from Sept. 11 to Sept. 22 in 2006. About half of the students in the study had attended full-day kindergarten while the other half attended half-day kindergarten.

Second-graders who attended full-day kindergarten on average scored 3.1 points higher on a standardized reading assessments than second-graders who attended half-day kindergarten. Second-graders who had full-day kindergarten and were low -income students, and students whose primary language wasn't English, fared about 8 points better than their counterparts who had half-day kindergarten.

Lisa Pitch, coordinator of research for the district and the study's principal author, said the Legislative Counsel Bureau's calculation was correct. However, she said it was incorrect to assume that students who weren't on the free or reduced lunch program -- Beers' definition of "at risk" -- were of moderate or higher income.

Pitch said the district doesn't collect information on family income unless a family signs up for the free and reduced lunch program, a federal initiative for low-income households.

She said 55 percent of the 1,233 students who participated in the study were eligible for free and reduced lunch. But she noted that some low-income families don't sign up for the program.

In its news release, the district states that the "at risk" category in the study is based on a literacy assessment, rather than income status.

The district, in its news release, also stated the following:

"A comparison of performance between full-day and half-day students who are neither ELL (English Language Learners) nor enrolled in free and reduced lunch ... does not show a statistically significant difference in academic performance, which mirrors the majority of national research in this area."