In Columbia, education is a big business. There are three universities alone as well as one of the largest public school districts in the state of Missouri.

Small stories like preschool becoming five days per week instead of four entails more business aspects than you think. For example, where is the funding for this coming from? It took quite a bit of number crunching and data analysis to understand how preschool all works and this expansion.

My story (click here) details this. In reporting on this story, I was faced with understanding budgets, what qualifies as Title I funding, how state aid is allocated, and more.

Lesson learned: understand the concepts and numbers before writing.