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Please, let's not forget early education as the legislature works to fill the budget gap!  Our very best education investment is in comprehensive early education for our state's most vulnerable children.  In Oregon this program is the Oregon PreKindergarten Head Start program.  Not only does this program pay off many times over in reduced k-12 costs, crime reduction, social services spending, but it supports a large number of good jobs.  In Central Oregon our OPK program employs 90 employees.  If the cuts for this biennium are put in place as currently planned not only will our most vulnerable children loose but so will the state and local economies as many OPK employees will end up on the unemployment role when they could be providing incredibly important education services.  The best infrastructure investment that we can make is on our children!

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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