A lot depends on next month’s state budget forecast, but expect another push by Governor Mark Dayton in 2018 to beef-up state funding for early childhood education. He’s talking about home health visits, child care and pre-kindergarten. Dayton says, “I’m gonna keep pushing to expand that, ’cause I think that’s our number-one most successful strategy for closing the achievement gap and getting the next generation of Amazon employees ready to fire out.”
Dayton says positive effects of early childhood education are undeniable. He says, “You just hear it over and over again: The benefits to those children at the time and the benefits to the quality of the education they’re able to absorb starting when they’re five and go to kindergarten.”
Republicans and Dayton have repeatedly disagreed about pre-kindergarten in public schools. G-O-P lawmakers contend it’s more cost-effective to target funds to at-risk students rather than spend large amounts on universal pre-K.
More in this excerpt from Dayton’s recent media avail: