Vallay Varro was a founding state executive director. She now serves as the president of 50CAN.

Late last night, legislators working on the education finance omnibus bill tightened the blindfold over Minnesota preschool parents’ eyes. They eliminated a provision that would allocate scholarship funding and link public funding to quality—the very provision you and other advocates had asked them to support. This means that Minnesota will continue to fund early education services without obligation to quality or providing parents with the critical information they need to make the best choices for their children’s learning.

Although the door to enacting this smart policy may look closed right now, we’re not giving up. Please join us in telling legislators that we are on the lookout for new opportunities this year for them to right this wrong. And when that new door opens, we expect them to fix this mistake and enact a rating system for Minnesota preschools.

This is one of those moments in the campaign where your voice matters more than ever. The legislature didn’t listen to the research, which proves that early childhood education closes achievement gaps, and they didn’t listen to the recommendations of the very pilot program they created. But together we can make them listen to us.

We hope you will join us in calling the legislature out on what they did. They need to know that the public is holding them accountable for ensuring that every Minnesota child enters kindergarten prepared and ready to learn.

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