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Legislature needs to extend pre-K funding

Among the many important issues the 2017 Legislature will tackle this session will be pre-kindergarten funding.

In 2017 Gov. Mark Dayton proposed the Legislature approve enough funding to ensure every Minnesota child could attend free, school-based pre-kindergarten. The Legislature fell a little short, but did respond with $50 million in one-time funding which did increase the amount of 4 year olds that could attend early learning school.

According to the governor’s office, approximately 6,100 4-year-olds are attending free, school-based pre-Kindergarten this year 133 school districts.

The Marshall Public School District is one of those districts, receiving $311,662. However, if the Legislature doesn’t continue that funding or make it permanent, Marshall and 50 other school districts will lose that important funding.

Pre-kindergarten is important because the Marshall school district and other districts are seeing assessment test scores inching up. It’s vital that trend continues to ensure a quality Minnesota workforce in the future.

The Minnesota Department of Education recognizes that the early childhood years from birth to the start of kindergarten are an important time of rapid growth and learning. The Center for Public Education reports that many educators are discovering that reform efforts in K-12 education systems are sometimes too little too late. Its research indicates by the time children reach kindergarten, they are already far behind their peers in skills and measures of school readiness.

The center also says these education gaps tend to be much more difficult and costly to close as children advance through elementary, middle and high school. If school districts in Minnesota want to see improvement in testing, more has to be done in the early stages of a student’s development.

Minnesota still ranks very low nationally when it comes to on-time high school graduations rates. According to the 2018 Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Business Benchmarks, the state ranked 32nd in the nation with a 82 percent graduation rate in 2015.

Minnesota can do better and needs to do better. Investing some extra dollars into early education will pay off in the future when it comes a quality workforce.

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