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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

$65 Million more for Pre-K Education

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Friday, May 31, 2013   

LANSING, Mich. – Michigan Lawmakers this week passed the state's education spending plan for the 2013-2014 school year.

It includes a $65 million budget increase for the Great Start Readiness Program, which offers preschool to 4-year-olds living in low- to moderate-income families.

Last year, there was a waiting list of nearly 30,000 children.

Gilda Jacobs, president of the Michigan League for Public Policy, says the state should also invest more for educating kids from birth to age three.

"Investments in that group are probably even more important, at least equally important, as those 4-year-olds,” she maintains. “And we're thrilled that 29,000 kids are going to get off the waiting list to get into a good preschool program. That's really, really important."

If the governor signs the bill, 16,000 more spots in the Great Start Readiness Program would open this fall. An additional $65 million would be available in the following school year to close the waiting list.

Jacobs says lawmakers who want to make a difference in public education should also address childhood poverty.

"Childhood poverty has risen over the last couple of years,” she says. “Half the kids in our state are on free or reduced lunch. We really have to take a look at really trying to attack poverty.

“Because kids that grow up in poverty are most likely to become adults that are living in poverty."








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