The Minneapolis Star-Tribune – Art Rolnick, Kate Mortenson and BARB FABRE
“Minnesota has made historic investments in early learning over the last several years. And through targeted early-learning scholarships, we are beginning to make significant progress on closing our educational achievement gap, one of the largest in the country. Leaders who have demonstrated their commitment to this progress deserve credit, but our work is not done. Our understanding of what resources are needed to prepare our youngest residents for school continues to evolve. In the coming legislative session, conversations about what additional investments are required almost certainly will again lead to debate over an alternative approach: universal prekindergarten for all 4-year-olds. There is broad agreement that Minnesota’s educational achievement gap is one of the state’s most critical challenges. However, at the State Capitol in 2015, differences over methods of addressing this challenge produced a sometimes-bitter argument that placed proposals with distinct goals into competition with each other. But pitting the unique needs of children who are born into poverty against the value of preK for all 4-year-olds is not helpful to arriving at an accurate understanding of either proposal.”(more)