Poor marks for Minnesota on pre-K

Other states have zoomed ahead on early education

Star Tribune Editorial

It's hard to name a public investment that has earned more praise from elected leaders and academic experts in recent years than early-childhood education. Scholars know it pays huge economic dividends, and politicians understand that it improves student performance while narrowing the nation's skills gap.

So it's galling to see that in a new national preschool study, Minnesota not only gets mediocre grades, but has actually been losing ground in recent years.

The Legislature will have a few chances to improve that disappointing score this session, but it should also get ready to do better in next year's full budget session.

The 2005 State Preschool Yearbook, published last week by Rutgers University, gives Minnesota high marks for quality and "resources." But don't be fooled. That's because Minnesota funds a small number of high-cost, high-quality Head Start slots.

On key measures, the state's grades are disappointing. Minnesota ranks 36th in the share of 4-year-olds with access to state-supported preschool. For 3-year-olds, it ranks 17th. And it is one of only 11 states with falling enrollments.

"I'm surprised," says Prof. Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers. "I know budgets are tight, but you wouldn't dream of telling a first-grader or a 12th-grader, sorry, budgets are tight and you don't get to go to school this year."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty seems to recognize the problem. He recently proposed $10.2 million for a package of pre-K initiatives, mostly grants to beef up curriculum for child-care providers.

That's a good start, but only a start. For one thing, the governor relies on diverting federal welfare-to-work reserves, which could evaporate if the economy deteriorates. Worse, it doesn't begin to correct the $80 million that the 2003 Legislature cut from the state's Basic Sliding Fee program, which was designed to help working parents afford high-quality child care in the first place.

The real problem is that Minnesota lacks a coherent, ambitious pre-K strategy. Last year, just 2 percent of its 4-year-olds had access to state-sponsored preschool. That compares to 11 percent in Colorado, 29 percent in Wisconsin and 17 percent nationally. If Minnesota can't do better than that with its most valuable assets, it isn't serious about its future.