Schooling Should Start Younger, Last Longer, Vallas Says

October 08, 1996|By Janita Poe, Tribune Staff Writer.

Chicago youngsters would be required by law to attend school longer under a proposal floated recently by Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas at a suburban college education seminar.

During a meeting with students and faculty at Benedictine University in Lisle on Friday, Vallas said he wanted to ask legislators to mandate that children start school at age 5 instead of 7 and stay in school until age 17 instead of 16. Currently, the Illinois School Code requires school districts to provide free kindergarten, but children do not have to attend school until age 7.

State Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw (R-Naperville), chairwoman of the House Education Committee, said lawmakers have proposed increasing the age students are required to stay in school for years, but there have been no proposals for adjusting the starting age to 5 from 7 in recent years, she said.

Cowlishaw said a new law would not affect most of the state because the vast majority of local school districts require children ages 5 and older to attend school.

"For most of the school districts it wouldn't make any difference if we changed the law," said Cowlishaw, who also was a guest at the seminar. "The custom is such that children already attend school by the time they are 5."

State Sen. Arthur Berman (D-Chicago), the minority spokesman on the Senate Education Committee, said he strongly supported the measure and would be willing to sponsor or co-sponsor such a bill when the legislature convenes in January. Berman called Vallas' proposal an "excellent suggestion," but he said it probably would not result in any drastic change in attendance because most children ages 5 and older attend school anyway.

"We're just responding to what people thought it (the law) was anyway," Berman said. However, he said Vallas is right to want a change for the record. "Apparently Paul thinks that this is a problem, that he needs some legal muscle to make sure that children get started as soon as possible."

The school code's age requirements have existed for decades, officials said, and were created during a time when many mothers began their child's formal education in the home. "Most urban areas have fewer children from two-parent homes and now parents are younger and parents are working," said Lynn St. James, the Chicago public schools' chief education officer. "The structures that might have existed once no longer do."

Lula Ford, the schools' instruction head, estimated some 5 percent of Chicago children ages 5 and 6 do not attend school, but she stressed that the exact number is hard to measure.

The majority of those not in formal school programs typically are at home, usually under supervised play or watching television.