Does Oregon need to become a leading state in funding early childhood education, particularly all-day kindergarten and Head Start? Sure, they can help children, but is it best to expand those programs now?

No. Not until Oregon funds its current education system adequately.

A Senate commission last week voted yes on a $233 million plan to expand Head Start to serve 80 percent of the eligible children, cut class sizes in grades one through three and add full-day kindergarten in every Oregon school district. Right on - for cutting class sizes in grades one through three. Certainly in Coos Bay, Reedsport and elsewhere, parents of children who sat in those classes crammed with 28 or more children will applaud the wisdom in that. These are the years where children learn the basics in reading, writing and math.

But the commission's plan has no money tied to it, which has been the undoing of most of Oregon's success educationally. It costs money, big money, to educate children, to hire full-time qualified teachers and back them up with assistants. For full-time kindergarten it also will require money up front to plan curriculum and ensure those children are engaged and guided in their learning, not just warming seats seven hours a day.

Rather than embarking in new directions, these partisan lawmakers need to hunker down, compromise and find solutions to the current and long-running education funding crisis. In this latest distraction, lawmakers say they could tap corporate income for three-quarters of the funding and school districts would have to come up with the rest.

How realistic is that? Imagine districts like Coos Bay, Reedsport, Myrtle Point and North Bend finding the money - in these districts where positions have been cut and schools merged or closed?

In actuality, if Oregon school districts had enough money, the small class-size proposal wouldn't even be on the table. And until it's off the table, it's premature for Oregon to talk about expanding public funding for preschool and kindergarten programs.