parents. What about the impacts on the child? Are there better academic outcomes?

Also, KSL, Deseret News, etc have all been pushing the same or similar talking points for the past month (good for moms, good for transitioning into full day school, good for less trips back and forth to schools, etc). They have all released multiple articles touting the benefits without much discussion on the downsides. It feels like a coordinated media push to convince everyone to give their 5yo kids 540 more hours (3hr * 180 days) in the care of the schools instead of at home.

If the alternative is sitting in front of an iPad for 3 hours each day due to both parents working, I think full-day kindergarten is better (basically taxpayer-funded child care with 1 adult watching 15-20 kids). If the alternative is spending time 1:1 with a parent learning things about the world (spending time outside), spending time learning practical things like cooking or reading etc, then I think it's a big miss to sign over parenting to the schools.

I am fortunate that my wife doesn't have to work. We have a 5yo and my wife goes and gets her halfway through the day every day. Only 4 out of about 50 students are doing the same thing. So far she's not falling behind academically at all and we intend to do it all year. It is a bit of a hassle to go into the school and sign her out every day but in our situation that 540 hours with mom at home (not the "57 minutes per day" or 180ish hours per school year that keeps being referenced) is too important to us.

The only thing keeping us from homeschooling at this point with our older kids is that they are in Spanish Immersion and half of their day is spent learning Spanish and it is working well. So we feel like they are getting good value from the 6 hours per day in school because 3 of it is learning another language.