FROM THE EDUCATION BLOG
April 2, 2013 in Archive: Past Education Blogs, Out-of-School Time, Youth Programs
In this special blog series, United Front’s Education Community explores how reductions in state and federal funding is adversely impacting Minnesota Afterschool programs.
Part Two: Reduced Funding Pressures Afterschool Programs
Information released by the MN Dept. of Education in the spring of 2012, supports programs’ pessimistic views about funding. For the past three years, the Department has identified dependable “funding streams” accessible to Minnesota’s afterschool programs. To qualify as a “primary funding stream” the funds must be a) available on a consistent basis, not as one-time funding, b) available to more than one site on either a regional or statewide basis, and c) be of sufficient size to allow the funder to have an impact on the field (i.e., having at least $500,000 dedicated to afterschool programming annually). Read the rest of this entry →
These are some of the key findings reported in our most recent briefing paper: 
If you’re going to ask the Legislature for heaps of money to send poor children to preschool and otherwise help prepare them for kindergarten, it sure doesn’t hurt to give your coalition a name that pulls at the heart strings.
Nearly 200,000 children ages 0 to 17 are living in poverty in Minnesota, a 60 percent increase since 2000. Not only are the numbers of children in poverty growing, the depth of poverty is growing as well. In that same time period, the number of children living in extreme poverty ($11,525 for a family of four) increased by more than 100 percent (Children’s Defense Fund—Minnesota, 2012). Education and poverty form a close and complex interrelationship for children in our community.
And then, I noticed it – a mistake in the text book. It was a ‘newish’ text book, one that had only been published in the last few years and hadn’t seen many owners. One that public schools everywhere were supposedly clamoring for. And it wasn’t a huge mistake – just using the wrong Roman numerals (on that Cartesian plane). But it was a mistake – one none of my textbooks had ever had. I had two simultaneous thoughts, the first being incredulity at an incorrect textbook (remember, I was 18 and textbooks had pretty well ruled my life to that point). And second, here these kids are, attending a public school in an economically disadvantaged community and the textbooks they were given to learn critical skills were wrong. So not only were these kids growing up in poverty, but now they weren’t even being given that most critical tool to break out of poverty themselves: an education. 
