My Point of View, By Ebenezer Howe

Alden resident Ebenezer Howe is chairman of the Freeborn County Republican Party. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the local party members.

With this year’s legislative session maybe over, let’s talk about an issue with which I have a big problem: education funding for pre-K.

My great-great grandfather brought his family to Freeborn County in 1865 from Vermont with a nine-year sidetrack in Wisconsin. Six of my dad’s seven sisters graduated college, with five of them teaching school at least for a while. Schools started out first through eighth, then high school was added and then kindergarten was added at some time along the way.

Now the last two years Gov. Mark Dayton has had a hissy fit over adding pre-K funding to schools when we already had fights over adequately funding K-12. I know I have not read everything on this subject over the last two years, but never have I seen any reference to reasons for jumpstarting kids in school. I would think that if it was a swell idea, someone between 1865 and 2016 would have written some document on why it is so good. Not in any article written on Dayton’s pre-K idea in the last two years has there been reference to such a document.

Now let’s take a look at Albert Lea’s participation in the pre-K program. Not every grade school has it available. In the two grade schools that do, only 100 children participate, and it is unclear, to me, if all pre-K children are in the program. From the words describing the program, enrollment is voluntary for eligible 4 year-olds. My guess is that, no, not all children are in. The cost is $8,190 per child by my math from the figures from the Albert Lea Tribune, and fully funded per Superintendent Mike Funk.

When all children are enrolled in pre-K, will it still be $8,190 per child or will costs sky-rocket, as always seems to be the case? With this budget bill, voluntary pre-K became permanent. Next steps will be to change voluntary to mandatory and eligible 4-year-olds to all 4-year-olds.

We spend a lot of our state tax revenue dollars on K-12 education, and it never seems to be enough.

When pre-K is added — oh, by the way, is pre-K only one year, or might it be more, and can a child flunk and have to repeat — minimum tax load would increase by 7.14 percent. Who picks up the tab for additional classrooms that will be needed? Are there enough trained teachers? I might be able to help out there, by demonstrating nap time. Well, if the additional costs out-pace state funding, there is always increased property taxes to fall back on!

Maybe you guessed I’m not too keen on this idea. Even with all the new technology of today, K-12 school still needs to be based on reading, writing and arithmetic. If you can’t read, you can’t look things up and get the data you need. Every job requires you read something, and the new technology even more so. Every job requires a person to be able to write at least a little bit and the new technology even more. Everyone needs arithmetic. At the very minimum you need to understand the money so you are not cheated out of your labor. All the extracurricular things in school assist in learning, and use of, the three basic Rs.

Is this pre-K thing based on getting children started earlier with the three Rs or is it to get everyone sold on more government by providing free day care on someone else’s taxes?

I am looking forward to a fun-filled 2018 election cycle. Already, both DFL and Republicans have several declared candidates for governor. My guess is when the dust settles from this legislative session, if it does settle, that we will see additional candidates entering the governor’s race. Also, there are plenty of open spots for folks in the races for secretary of state, attorney general, auditor, the Senate and Congressional District 1 representative.