Minnesota 2020 Touts Early Care and Education

Ready 4 K has known since our inception that investing in high quality early care and education has tremendous social, economic and educational benefits--indeed, it's our raison d'etre for existing. So it's always welcome news when other organizations, especially ones whose raison d'etre is not early childhood, touts its benefits and encourages policy makers to embrace it.

Recently, Minnesota 2020, a progressive, non-partisan think tank, issued a series of communications on the topic, concluding that:

"The question isn't whether these services are needed. They clearly are. We must ask: Why is Minnesota compromising its future prosperity by refusing to properly invest in early childhood education? If Minnesota children consistently start behind at Kindergarten, it undermines the state's long history of K-16 investment that has propelled us above our prairie competitors. The path to a strong, vibrant, nimble future for Minnesota's economy starts on rubber-tiled floors with miniature plastic chairs and trained educators delivering researched-based lessons that advance cognitive development, not in front of grandma or a neighbor's television."

Read their perspective on how the 2010 Legislative Session fared for early childhood here, a featured story here and their in-depth report here.

They also put together a wonderful video summarizing their findings.




Welcome, Minnesota 2020, to the growing array of voices advocating for high quality early care and education!