Dear Friends,
Next Monday will mark one week until our constitutionally-mandated May 18 deadline. Conference committees are hard at work as we work on finalizing our 2016-2017 budget bills.
As I mentioned last week, I'm very fortunate to have been appointed to serve on the K-12 Education conference committee. I'm confident that we will be able to reach an agreement that increases funding for our schools and will boost student learning and achievement.
It's important to remember that both the House and the Senate plan boost funding for K-12 schools, though not by as much as Governor Dayton whose proposal also includes universal Pre-K. Legislators in both parties in the House and Senate as well as many from the education community have expressed reservations about the cost and effectiveness of the Governor's proposal.
Many schools simply don't have the space to fit a whole new grade level of students, and the new costs for schools to add the teachers, classrooms, and supplies necessary to accommodate Pre-K would likely outpace the amount of funding they receive from the state. This will ultimately lead to further financial stress for schools. We should be focused at this time on making sure we are delivering the best education that we can for our K-12 students before we talk about adding universal Pre-K into the equation.
Hope everyone has a pleasant Mother's Day weekend.
Roz Peterson
State Representative, District 56B