It was endorsed on a 36-14 vote, and will advance to the Republican-controlled House after a final procedural vote. Full-day kindergarten is expected to face opposition in the House.
Senate Majority Leader Carol Williams, D-Missoula, said after the vote that the Republican votes in the Senate shows that all-day kindergarten has support among Montanans of many stripes.
SB123 is the brainchild of Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch. It's expected to cost the state about $28 million over the next two years. It would pay the cost of full-day kindergarten for schools that choose to offer it. The bill would not require districts to offer all-day kindergarten, nor would it make the classes mandatory for students.
Right now, the state only pays money for half-day kindergarten. Some schools have chosen to offer full-day kindergarten and pay for it with local money.
Supporters of the bill, including McCulloch, have cited studies showing that children who go to all-day kindergarten do better in schools later and are more prepared for first grade than those who do not.
Sen. Don Ryan, D-Great Falls, said his daughter went to all-day kindergarten in Great Falls schools, which have offered the classes for the last 12 years. She needed some special help at first in school, but eventually caught up with her peers - a move Ryan attributed to the early help she got at all-day kindergarten.
“This is a tremendous investment in children at a time when they (use) it the best,” he told fellow senators.
Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel, who voted against the bill, proposed changing Williams' bill to allow school districts to spend the money on a different kind of early childhood education that might work better in their districts.
He said he was concerned the bill forced all-day kindergarten on Montana's diverse school districts when something else might work better.
The Senate rejected McGee's plan on a mostly party-line vote.
Sen. Roy Brown, R-Billings, also opposed the bill, saying he did so because it could raise property taxes.
Several Republicans raised concerns that the program could stir up talk about unequal education in Montana if poorer districts cannot afford the matching money needed to offer all-day kindergarten. Others, like Sen. Joe Balyeat, R-Bozeman, said he thought senators needed to question whether the cost of all-day kindergarten is really worth the benefits.
Sen. Keith Bales, R-Otter, was one of the Republicans who crossed the aisle in supporting the bill.
“I've got very mixed feelings on it,” Bales said after the vote. “I would have dearly loved to have seen Sen. McGee's amendment put on it.”
But, he said, small school districts like those in his southeastern Montana district “need all the help they can get.”
The debate is not the last word on kindergarten in the state Senate. Gov. Brian Schweitzer's main education bill is up before the same group Tuesday, and it includes a nearly identical measure to pay for all-day kindergarten.
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