Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

The Future of Public Education in Minnesota

By far, the single best investment any state legislature can make is in adequate public education for our youth. In today's world, we often speak of sustainable practices, which essentially means that decisions made today ought to consider the effect on tomorrow's generation. I have been proud of my votes in the Minnesota legislature in support of sustainable public education, and I am also proud to once again have earned the support and endorsement of Education Minnesota for my Senate campaign.

Of course, it is easy for any politician to simply say they support public education. But our state is still in need of additional work in this area, and it takes experience to get effective policy accomplished. This is just one of the many reasons I want to continue working for you in St. Paul, because I believe that education investments define our future as a state, develop our world's best workforce, and provide opportunities to once and for all eliminate opportunity gaps for every child, regardless of race, sex or religion.

1. Pre-K Learning

Governor Dayton has made it a priority to provide a universal statewide pre-K learning system for individual school districts to consider. I have been a strong supporter of the Head Start program, and I am convinced that a pre-K public school option is worth the investment. Two years ago I helped to pass statewide all-day Kindergarten, and I see this as a natural extension to that. In the first year, it is expected that over 47,000 preschoolers would have access to the program, and expanding to 57,000 plus soon thereafter. At a $350 million dollar price tag, it is a sizeable investment, but a necessary one as we work to be inclusive to all, and help to further close the opportunity gap.

Studies of these programs have shown that high-quality preschool can come with significant gains for the children. For example, children in some programs have ended up with significantly better language and math skills, and programs have led to improvements in cognitive, academic, and emotional skills. A high-quality program in a large midwestern city was found to increase children's earnings later in life and actually reduced their chances of becoming incarcerated. Other studies have found savings of up to $7 per dollar spent and improvements in human capital, mobility, and economic output. It is also a boon to working parents, particularly mothers: mothers with regular child care arrangements are twice as likely to stay in their jobs, and fully funding early childhood education would increase their employment by up to 10 percent.

It is worth the investment, and with this initiative that I fully support, we cannot lose sight of the fact that pre-K is only good for all kids if it is accessible. We have many, many Duluth families who struggle to find transportation now, and I will work hard to ensure that as we expand access to education, we also provide needed transportation for Minnesota's most precious resources.

2. Narrowing the Opportunity Gap

Some of us refer to the achievement gap as an opportunity gap, because not graduating from high school truly causes opportunities to be missed. The work we did in 2013-2014 was a huge start to solving this, but the reality is that we are still underfunding our K-12 formula. If we want teachers to be able to focus on every single child as much as is necessary, then we have to find a way to reduce class sizes. Teachers are incredibly resourceful, and so good at what they do, but if we don't allow them the time to work with students, parents, counselors and other staff, we will continue to see these unfortunate gaps. We need to continue to invest in the per pupil formula, and be diligent in our efforts to ensure all public schools are funded fairly and equally.

From 2011 to 2015, Minnesota's high school on time graduation rate increased from 77.2% to 81.9%, which is significant, but we can do better, especially for minority populations. I will support every effort to further reduce this gap going forward.

3. Higher Education

Half a century ago, free public school through the 12th grade was available. At that time, a high school diploma would provide most working class people the opportunity to be a part of the middle class, obtaining good paying jobs, and the ability to provide for their families. Now, it is expected that some form of higher education beyond high school graduation is needed to obtain good "middle class" jobs. That can take the form of post -- secondary certificates, associate's degree, or a bachelor's degree. But as the demand has changed, society has not responded to the demand. We now have college affordability issues in the form of student loans; we have college access issues for those unable to secure financing, which in turn is feeding this widening disparity gap across Minnesota.

It is time for Minnesota to have a serious conversation about the future of higher education access in Minnesota. 50 years ago the government paid for public education designed to provide a functioning middle class. It is time for government to resume its commitment to society, and we need to find a way to fund both post-secondary certificate/trade programs, as well as an associate's degree option. We have the infrastructure to accomplish this, and as you can imagine such an effort will also go a long ways towards reducing the opportunity gap for all Minnesotans, regardless of economic status. We need to begin the conversations with the business world as to how to pay for this. It is in their best interest to grow our qualified workforce as well, and I believe there is room for discussion there. This needs to be a fresh discussion going forward, and I am committed to carrying that conversation.

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