Minnesota Business Community Backs Pre-School Efforts

Pre-school access has enormous long term economic benefits for our Country. As children perform better in school, and more children are given opportunities to succeed, we all benefit.  Business groups in Minnesota play a key role in that State's efforts to expand pre-school access.  Virginia business leaders should play the same role. This is a great opportunity for business leaders, education leaders and child advocates to work together.

Rob

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On business: Legislature gives business leaders big victory

Neal St. Anthony, Star Tribune www.startribune.com
July 19, 2005 NEALST0719
Business leaders who have championed expanded preschool programs to help prepare low-income Minnesota kids for kindergarten got the green light to proceed and some much-deserved recognition of the early-childhood education issue from the just-adjourned Legislature.

Although the group has so far raised only a fraction of the public seed money it has sought, it's moving ahead with private contributions.

"Overall, this is a good beginning," said Al Stroucken, the CEO of H.B. Fuller Co. and chairman of what is now known as Minnesota Business for Early Learning. "Now we have to start in earnest to get more companies involved in making contributions."

Last fall, a business-and-nonprofit task force recommended to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature the establishment of a $30 million public-private fund to study and expand the best preschool education models. The task force, headed by Cargill executive Rob Johnson, was acting on research by Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank economists suggesting that public investment in preschool learning programs is among the best-returning investments government can make.

As part of the final education bill that Pawlenty signed into law last week, legislators agreed to authorize the "Minnesota Early Learning Foundation" as a new nonprofit organization, kick in $1 million in public seed money and authorize a significant expansion of the assessment and screening of 3-year-olds to identify those most in need.

"At the end of the day, as we saw this session, there are tough issues and economic trade-offs to be made," Stroucken said. "Yet I believe if you look at the outcome, we didn't get all we had hoped for, but we didn't expect to solve this in one year. It's a long-term expectation."

Meanwhile, Cargill -- which increasingly is focusing its philanthropy on disadvantaged kids -- kicked in $1 million, which was matched by the McKnight Foundation and $500,000 from the United Way. Meanwhile, partly as a result of lobbying from businesses and the affiliated "Ready 4K" organization, Pawlenty and the Legislature rescinded nearly $10 million in past cuts to Head Start and Early Childhood Family Education.

However, the child-care reimbursement formula that subsidizes day care and preschool programs for thousands of Minnesota kids from working-poor families remains frozen at the 2001 level.

It is estimated that about 50 percent of kids entering kindergarten are not prepared to learn.
"We're trying to transform the issue from one of public expense to public investment," said Cargill's Johnson. "That's been a very powerful argument with respect to early learning. Most of us believe we need to develop more cost-effective ways to deliver an educational service. That gets real traction with people in the business community. And we're finding support from people in the social services and child advocacy.

"We're going to look for money from companies and foundations. We'll look at counties and school districts. We're interested in pursuing projects with them. Through the third leg of this, we're interested in civic associations, such as Rotary clubs, who get very interested in these issues."

In a nutshell, the state spends about 40 percent of its budget on primary and secondary education, but less than 1 percent on preschool education. Moms used to make this happen for most kids. But the business task-force study found that most moms are working, many of these kids are being raised in single-parent homes, and there are higher academic hurdles for kindergarten kids than existed a generation ago.

The business task force convened after Stroucken, Johnson and others examined a 2003 study by Fed researchers Art Rolnick and Rob Grunewald. The economists found that early-age education for at-risk kids yields up to a 16 percent annual return to taxpayers in the form of lower special-education costs later, increased taxes paid by those kids as adults and the avoided costs of welfare, police, prison and other expensive social services.

The Minnesota Early Learning Foundation establishes business in a formal way at the preschool table, alongside Ready 4K, the four-year sister coalition of early-education providers, politicians, some business people and community organizations.

Earlier, Todd Otis, who heads Ready 4K, and the business backers said 2005 would be the first pivotal year in establishing the business, government and community support that will lead to the establishment of best practices and full funding for every needy preschooler.

Stroucken & Co. are focused on a four-prong approach that includes expanding the United Way's Success by Six program and the Itasca Group, the business coalition that is lobbying legislators on several issues, including more funding for early-age education.

Neal St. Anthony can be reached at 612-673-7144 or nstanthony@startribune.com.

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