The state of Colorado should recognize the importance of full-day kindergarten and fund it. To continue to do otherwise is to denigrate a key part of primary education. Kindergarten is not another year of pre-school, it is not day care, a luxury or an amenity. It is simply the first step in a process that unfolds over years.

Senate Bill 23, which was before the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Monday, would over time increase state funding for kindergarten from the current half-day rate to full-day status. School District 9-R officials testified on its behalf. And they were right to do so.

In discussions of public policy, particularly budgeting, education is typically referred to in one of two ways. There is “higher education,” which means college, and there is “K-12,” which means kindergarten through grade 12 or high school.

And there are reasons why K-12 is presented as one thing. While experienced in steps, K-12 is one continuous educational process. And within that, the “K” is just as important as the “12” – or any of the numbers in between.

Part of the reason for the nomenclature is, of course, governance. While broken up into elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, the years spent in kindergarten through high school graduation are part of one system, with one governing board, one taxing district and one financing scheme.

Higher education is all about helping young adults learn broad or extremely detailed concepts. It is about creating or developing an intellectual superstructure.

K-12, however, is foundational. And nothing better exemplifies that than kindergarten. Children in kindergarten are not so much learning facts, concepts or skills as they are learning to be students – to get used to going to school every day, to work with others, to be (relatively) quiet and focus. For children to shut up, concentrate and get something done is not a natural act, but learning those skills has to start somewhere.

Kindergarten is the first step in that process. And with that, first-grade teachers can better focus on the more formal aspects of education – things like reading.

Why that critical first step is considered somehow superfluous is curious, but mistaken. Colorado now funds only half-day kindergarten, implicitly suggesting that the other half day is unneeded. To its credit, School District 9-R has itself funded the other half for 20 years, and if need be should continue.

It would be better, however, for the state to directly fund full-day kindergarten. Not all districts can or will pick up the cost of the other half. As it is, District 9-R is one of only a few Colorado school districts that do.

For 9-R that represents a cost of $1.4 million per year, money that could go to other worthy programs. The problem supporters of SB 23 face is that the bill is of course enmeshed in Colorado’s Byzantine process for funding education as well as its bizarre constitutional spending restraints. Either could well prevent its passage.

It is the right thinking nonetheless. That District 9-R rightly understands the formative importance of getting kids off to a good start is excellent, but it is a recognition that should be statewide.