Educate children early

Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.: Early childhood education — both kindergarten and prekindergarten — should be mandatory in Mississippi. Until then, this state will continue to struggle to educate children who are simply not ready to learn when they do have to start school.

State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright has been on the job just 11 months, but she has already seen “compelling evidence” that Mississippi’s unwillingness to embrace universal early childhood education has “frightening” consequences.

Children without the benefit of pre-K and kindergarten instruction are entering the primary grades without the most basic of learning skills and comprehension.

“We have got to have kids in kindergarten. It can’t be an option,” she told the Sun Herald. “To me, if we’re going to improve education in this state — and we are — we have got to get children into high-quality learning as quickly as we can. And then have them prepared.”

Schooling must start sooner so that our children are in a position to take full advantage of every day they are in class.