The Massachusetts Senate announced new legislation Tuesday to invest more efficiently in education, with an estimated $1 billion proposal known as “ Kids First.”
“We want to know what public policies and public investments work to help, from prenatal all the way through post-secondary education,” Senate President Stan Rosenberg said Tuesday on Boston Public Radio. “We’re trying to shift the paradigm and stop spending money on fixing problems and start spending money on investing where you need to invest in order to prevent the problems.”
The immediate initiative will focus on prenatal care through third grade, with a goal to reduce the third-grade illiteracy rate from 40 percent to 20 percent by 2027.
This clashes with Gov. Charlie Baker’s previous view of pre-K education, which is that early childhood gains can fade over time, and education budgets focus too heavily on pre-K education.
“It’s exactly the opposite,” Rosenberg said. “If you do the pre-K and you do it right, then children will read at grade level by the fourth grade, and if they read at a fourth-grade level when they enter the fourth grade, their chances of success and making it through school and having higher ambitions and greater success goes up dramatically.”
When asked if Baker was on board with the initiative, Rosenberg said the Senate was chipping away. “My understanding is, he is in favor of some portions of this, he just doesn’t agree with the whole of it yet,” he said. “We will continue our conversation with him.”
To hear Senate President Stan Rosenberg’s entire interview with Boston Public Radio, click on the audio link above.
