The sites listed on this page are not created, maintained, or endorsed by the Minnesota Legislature.

Minnesota Information

• Minnesota Department of Education:
  • Community Education, Early Childhood Family Education and School Readiness Programs - School district data on fund balance limits and revenue expenditure data.
  • Early Learning - Information on Minnesota's programs and services for families with pre-school age children. Included is information on School Readiness/Kindergarten.
• Ready 4 K: Minnesota's School Readiness Campaign - A nonprofit group acting to unite parents, communities, organizations, and policy makers to advocate for school readiness.
• University of Minnesota
  • Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) - Connecting the resources of the University of Minnesota with local, state, and national school improvement initiatives.
  • Center for Early Education and Development (CEED) - Through research and community outreach, CEED strives to effect positive change in early education, child care, and public policy.

Federal Government Information

• U.S. Department of Education - Information on the department's organization and activities as well as access to statistics and reports is available at this extensive site.
  • Early Childhood - Publications and resources on a variety of subtopics related to early childhood education.
  • National Center for Education Statistics - Search for statistics or for specific publications, or go directly to Annual Reports which links to such reports as The Condition of Education and The Digest of Education Statistics.

Articles, Databases, and Directories

• EducationAtlas.com - Provides a "map to the world of education". Categories include, early childhood, K-12, higher education, teachers, distance learning, and special education.
• EducationNews.org - Features a daily compilation of education articles published in newspapers and other media sources. Includes both United States and international news.
• Education Week - Access current and archived issues.
• Educator's Reference Desk - Includes resource guides on a variety of education issues.
• ERIC Database - A bibliographic database of more than 1.1 million education citations dating back to 1966. Provides abstracts of journal articles and, in some cases, the full text of documents.

Organizations

• Alliance for Early Childhood Finance - Seeking more rational financing of early care and education in America.
• Birth to Five Policy Alliance - Their goal is to promote innovative and successful policy ideas that support families in their parenting role and ensure positive early childhood development and learning opportunities for at-risk infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families.
  
• Early Childhood Education Assessment (ECEA) - A consortium of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).
• Education Commission of the States - Includes a P-3 Early Grades, What States Are Doing, and P-3 Systems sections.
• Future of Children - This organization promotes effective policies and programs for children. Their website provides free access to their policy briefs and to The Future of Children, which offers cross-disciplinary articles focusing on issues related to children published twice per year.
• National Association for the Education of Young Children - An organization of early childhood educators and others dedicated to improving the quality of programs for children from birth through third grade. MNAEYC is their Minnesota affiliate.
• National Conference of State Legislatures: Early Childhood - This division of NCSL's website focuses on early childhood issues from a state level.
• National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center - NECTAC supports the implementation of the early childhood provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
• National Education Association (NEA) - Provides information on the NEA's "Issues in Education"; includes an Early Childhood Education issues area.
• National Institute for Early Education Research - NIEER's website links to a wide variety of information including, The State of Preschool: 2007. The Yearbook offers access to each states' profile, including the Minnesota State Profile.
• Office of Head Start - This division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides comprehensive child development services to economically disadvantaged children and families, with a special focus on helping preschoolers develop the early reading and math skills they need to be successful in school.
• Pre-K Now - An organization that advances high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds. Resources include profiles of the states.
• RAND: Child Policy - A gateway to RAND research on children's issues from prenatal to age 18. Child Policy research is organized by topic area, including Early Childhood Education and Child Policy Publications (1990 to present).
• State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network (SECPTAN) - A network of experts on early childhood issues available to help state decision makers (governors and their staff, legislators and their staff, and agency heads) design early childhood policies.
  

• See Also Children's Issues
• See Also Education (K-12)