The Minnesota Early Learning Foundation’s new Parent Aware program has been profiled in several media outlets this week. The Parent Aware website describes the system as a rating tool “designed to recognize early educators for the quality of care they deliver and build on this quality by supporting their efforts at program improvement.”
Twin Cities Finance and Commerce has a long feature story about why the foundation decided to create this project:
The foundation is in its second year of creating a “market” for early learning as a way to improve early-learning opportunities — and thereby the number and quality of college graduates — in Minnesota. MELF, which is heavily funded by Cargill, McKnight and others, has created a ratings system around a structured early learning model — and says it’s empowering parents to use it.
“The expectation is that those numbers are not going to get better if we don’t do something about this,” said Duane Benson, the foundation’s executive director, who was recruited by Cargill.
Data gathered from MELF’s pilot sites, which are aiming for “four-star” status under the foundation’s new rating system, is expected to serve as a model for a large-scale private-public early-learning program in Minnesota. Whether that leads to state funding is unknown at this point.
(Finance and Commerce also profiles Benson in a separate article.)
General Mills Foundation executive director Ellen Goldberg Luger on why her foundation helps fund MELF:
“From the corporate citizenship perspective, General Mills wants all children to be prepared to enter kindergarten ready to learn. Also, we care about the workforce of the future. We know that an investment in a child’s early learning can assist that child in becoming a productive and contributing member of our society and communities.”
Parent Aware in other media:
