The Problem With Kindergarten
When Ojeya Cruz Banks moved to Ohio from New Zealand several years ago, she was overwhelmed by the logistics of uprooting her life. But Cruz Banks, a Denison University professor and a single mom, who is also my neighbor and friend, was relieved to find a house next to a public elementary school. She assumed that she would be able to walk to pick up her daughter—a needed convenience given that she didn’t yet have a car. Unfortunately, when she went to register her daughter for kindergarten, she was met with an unpleasant surprise: The only available option was a half-day program that would bus students to a day-care center on the outskirts of town for the afternoon. The district did offer a limited number of full-day slots, but those had all been claimed in a lottery earlier that spring and came with a
