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Lawmakers tout support for early education funding

By Collin Reischman

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A bipartisan group of lawmakers touted their support for expanding early childhood education spending at a news conference Tuesday morning.

America’s Edge, a non-profit organization of business leaders focusing on investment in children, hosted the event as an opportunity to tout a recent report on the economic advantages of state investments in public education. The report was commissioned by the Missouri Coordinating Board for Early Childhood.

The report, presented by Martha Brooks, regional director of America’s Edge, said the return on investment for early childhood funding can be as high as $16 for every dollar invested.

“Few investments offer such dramatic and proven short and long-term economic benefits as early care and education,” Brooks said.

State Sen.’s Ryan Silvey, Jason Holsman, David Pearce, Paul LeVota and Joseph Keaveny — along with Rep. John Wright — accompanied Brooks at the press conference.

Keaveny is pushing two bills in the Senate aimed at increasing funding for three to five year-old children in the state. Pearce said the bills received a friendly hearing in the Education Committee, which he chairs, and expected at least one of them to be voted out later in the week.

While the full America’s Edge report calls for nearly $1 billion in investments for early childhood care, some lawmakers said such an investment simply wasn’t possible in the current climate. Holsman said that legislation in the Senate aimed at reducing the corporate and individual income tax levels would have a detrimental affect on education funding.

“There’s not a dollar this state will spend that is more important than early childhood education,” Holsman said. “You’re going to hear myself and other Senators on the floor asking why we are asking the people to increase their own sales tax when we don’t have the general revenue to fund our obligations, education being one of them.”