Wade Watch: Pre-Kinder, Kinder teachers are just babysitters

Wade not sure Bucks costing  Laredo $$, but 100% sure Pre-K should be cut!

Tom wade continued to rail against the entire idea of Texas' early childhood education  today on his radio show at 1090 on your AM dial. On Sunday, there was an editorial in the Laredo Morning Times urging educational leaders to spare Pre-K & Kinder from any cuts. The newspaper also urged the public to speak out in hopes of maintaining early childhood education intact. Apparently, this did not sit well with Wade at all. Although, I did not catch his entire show today, I did here him repeating his suggestion that pre-kinder/kinder is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded babysitting operation and called for its elimination.

According to Sunday's LMT article, the number of teachers and educational aides employed locally at these grade levels are quite substantial. UISD and LISD combined have approximately 400 teachers and aides working daily with the districts' pre-k/kinder programs. For their part, UISD has hinted that they may elect to cut the early childhood programs to half a day. LISD superintendent Nelson, on the other hand, has said that if any cuts take place, they will start from the top, down. Also, LISD president George Beckelhymer has indicated that he hopes there will be no cuts to early childhood since the district has already invested millions of dollars in the program.