Funding all day K

THUMBS UP: For several years now, District 88 and other districts in the area have been providing all day, every day kindergarten for students. They believed so much in the value of this service to kindergarten students that they have been paying extra for the teachers and classroom space, above the half-day that the state was paying for.

This year, however, kindergarteners are going to school, as before, but the state is paying the cost, about $134 million a year.

About half the districts in the state did not have all day kindergarten last year, and in many that did, parents paid extra for the service. Going all-day is optional for districts, but most are taking advantage of the program.

This is a proven way of getting young students off to a good start on their academic careers, and we applaud it.

VA?problems in state

THUMBS DOWN: Minnesotans were assured earlier this year that the problems with delays and falsified appointments in Veterans Administration hospitals in the nation weren’t happening here. The Minneapolis VA hospital may not have been meeting all the scheduling deadlines, but no one was falsifying schedules, we were told by VA officials.

This week KARE-11 reported allegations from two ex-VA employees that they had been pressured to falsify records and keep secret appointment lists, the same kind of problems found in the Phoenix VA system that sparked the nationwide outrage. The employees said they had been told to falsify records further, to say veterans had refused care when they hadn’t even been examined. The two claim they were fired for blowing the whistle.

Government inspectors should come down with both feet on the Minneapolis VA, and any wrongdoing should be punished.