Study: Full-Day Kindergarten Boosts Academic Performance

By Debra Viadero

New Orleans

A study of 17,600 Philadelphia schoolchildren suggests that full-day kindergarten programs may have both academic and financial payoffs.

The study found that, by the time they reached the 3rd and 4th grades, former full-day kindergartners were more than twice as likely as children without any kindergarten experiences—and 26 percent more likely than graduates of half-day programs—to have made it there without having repeated a grade.

Moreover, the researchers calculated, the lower retention rates for graduates of Philadelphia's full-day classes shave close to 19 percent off of the cost of providing them, which in 1999 came to about $2 million...