Accessibility menu
State Representative Joe Mullery
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-4262
For more information contact: Matt Swenson 651-297-8406
COMMUNITY NOTICE
EARLY CHILDHOOD AND K-12 EDUCATION
We increased the E-12 budget by more than eight percent. Early childhood education, which is proving to be so important for people throughout their lives, received the biggest boost in funding. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank shows that for every dollar the government spends for early childhood development for at-risk children, the return is between $13 and $17, when you count the costs of crime that doesn’t occur, the costs of extra education throughout their learning years if they don’t have it at their earliest stages, the losses to the economy and lost taxes throughout their lives.
When the Republicans increased the amount of money going to education two years ago, they required a lot of new property tax to do it. All of our increase came from state taxes, mostly from income tax, which does not hurt our community as much.
We extended the number of children who could go to voluntary all-day kindergarten (until the governor’s budget cuts we had intended to cover all kids). In Minneapolis we now have two-thirds of the children in all-day kindergarten.
Even more important, we funded the skyrocketing special education costs, which greatly helps districts such as Minneapolis. In fact, in a recent meeting with leadership for the Minneapolis schools, I found out that Minneapolis will receive over $16 million more than they expected from the state next year.
The biggest reason that Minneapolis schools are losing so much money from the state is the fact that the school-age children that live in the city are often not going to Minneapolis schools. For instance, 44 percent of the school-age children in North Minneapolis do not go to Minneapolis public schools; they go to charter schools or suburban schools, and some are home-schooled, etc. Some people high in the Minneapolis public schools have admitted to me that they know the biggest cause of this phenomenon is related to discipline, or lack thereof (which I’ve known for years because parents have told me why they’ve taken their children out of our schools); another factor is that some parents are actively seeking parental involvement but feel their involvement is not welcome by Minneapolis public schools.
News Items
- Reminder: Primary - August 14; Some Voting Locations May Have Changed - (Posted: 2012-07-08 00:00:00)
- Passing of Dr. John Williams - (Posted: 2012-07-09 00:00:00)
- Rep. Mullery: 2012 Legislative Report - (Posted: 2012-07-10 00:00:00)
- Archived News Items
- Subscribe to RSS News Feeds
- Read more about RSS.