MELF to sunset the end of 2011
The Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF) was formed in 2005 by high profile business and civic leaders to determine effective and affordable ways to improve early education quality, so more kids would be ready for kindergarten. From the beginning, MELF pledged to its funders and the community that it would sunset at the end of 2011. Although MELF will sunset on December 31, it is urging state leaders to not let the sun set on Minnesota’s early education reform movement. The challenge is in the form of the Early Education Reform Blueprint.
Half of Minnesota kids are currently unprepared for Kindergarten, and too many of them never catch up and ultimately drop out of school. Because dropouts generate taxpayer costs associated with special education, unemployment, health care, law enforcement and prisons, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis estimate that every $1 of investment in the kind of high quality early education that prepares children for kindergarten $16 of benefits is realized by society. The MELF-recommended reforms are focused on improving the quality of the early education offerings of the states childcare providers.
Parent Aware for School Readiness
In addition to the challenges made to government leaders, MELF also challenged the private sector to continue to be involved in pushing for early education reform. Heeding that call, a new private organization, Parent Aware for School Readiness (PASR, pronounced like “passer”) is raising non-governmental funding to 1) market the Parent Aware Ratings to parents shopping for child care and 2) continually evaluate the Parent Aware Ratings standards to keep them strong and evidence-based.
“For a problem this important, we need an ongoing public-private partnership to keep the early education reform movement going forward,” said Rob Johnson, President of the Cargill Foundation, and a PASR leader. "The private sector is preparing to do its part by promoting a cost-effective Parent Aware ratings system, and we look forward to working with the Governor and the Legislature on this and the broader early learning reform agenda.”
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