Drawing Line Between Free Speech And Politics At MN Schools

A bill now heading to the Minnesota House floor bans public school employees from using district resources to advocate a political agenda. Bill author Representative Kurt Bills (R-Rosemount) says “schools should be a place of learning and not politicking for any side.” Representative Mindy Greiling (DFL-Roseville) said there is often a blurred line between stating fact and political advocacy.

GOP Teacher Layoff Law An Invitation To Lawsuits Says Union

Teachers with seniority shouldn’t be worried about a law allows school boards to lay them off instead of less senior teachers says Senator Gen Olson (R-Minnetonka). She says if they are good and haven’t retired on the job, they will remain employed because they are valuable.

Jan Alswager of Education Minnesota, a teachers’ union, says the law isn’t necessary since a law passed last year allows schools to fire teachers if they aren’t improving. Alswager says the proposed law will create a “lot of chaos, a lot of grievances, (and) possible lawsuits.

Underfunding Schools Creates Need For Layoff Bill Says DFL

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen argues that a bill making it easier to lay off teachers with seniority wouldn’t be needed if Republicans had properly funded Minnesota’s schools.

House Majority Leader Matt Dean counters that “we don’t have to be quality blind when we lay people off”. Representative Dean says Minnesota is one of only eleven states that relies solely on seniority for deciding what teachers to lay off.

The bill passed the House on a 68-61 vote and now goes to the Senate.

“Ideas Of Grandeur” Fuel Student Debt Says Rep. Buesgens

The reason college students are deeply in debt and graduate without a job is because some of them shouldn’t be in college says Representative Mark Buesgens (R-Savage). He made the comments during a House floor debate about a bill requiring teachers to pass a basic skills exam before being licensed in Minnesota.

He unsuccessfully offered an amendment that would require teacher candidates to pass the exam before entering a teacher training program in college.

He said the state is putting “ideas of grandeur” in students heads by not making them take a basic skills test before even entering a training program. He said too many people with college degrees are unemployed and have to pay back massive student loans.


Rep. Carlos Mariani (DFL-St. Paul) disagreed and compared teacher degree programs to another profession. “A good analogy here would be requiring aspiring doctors to pass their medical boards in order to get into medical school. Why would we do that?”

The bill passed the House unanimously and is on its way to the Senate.

States Get Exemptions To “No Child Left Behind” Law

President Obama announces ten states have agreed to implement bold reforms around standards and accountability will receive flexibility from the most burdensome mandates of the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind.

The ten states approved for flexibility are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

Transcript of President Obama’s remarks about No Child Left Behind exemptions for 10 states … Continue Reading

Vouchers For College? MN Education Head Says Maybe

Vouchers for college? Minnesota’s Higher Education Director Larry Pogemiller says he’s open to the idea.

The former Senator made the comments during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Higher Education Committee after Senator John Carlson, a Republican, raised the question. Pogemiller, who is a Democrat, says he is open to thinking way outside the box.

For 30 years, Senator Pogemiller was the one asking the questions of appointees. Today, Former Senator Pogemiller said it was a little strange to sit “on the other side” of the table during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Pogemiller resigned his Senate seat when Governor Mark Dayton asked him to take the Higher Education position. Senate Republicans recently rejected Dayton’s choice for Public Utilities Commissioner Ellen Anderson, who also was a Senator who resigned her seat to take the job.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend Pogemiller be confirmed as Higher Education Director.

Full video of Pogemiller confirmation hearing: … Continue Reading

Reforming Education To Fill Technical Jobs In Minnesota

“At a time of high unemployment, we actually have over 2 million high-wage jobs that are going unfilled,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a town hall meeting at Irondale High School in New Brighton on Friday. Secretary Duncan was joined by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and Minnesota Department of Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius. “These are jobs that can’t be exported that we can’t fill. We need to challenge ourselves in the education community. What are we doing to prepare our students not for the jobs of yesterday but for the jobs of tomorrow?”

“We used to lead the world in college graduation rates, now we’re 16th,” said Duncan. “We’ve stagnated, and other countries have passed us by. They’re out investing, they’re out-innovating, and you wonder why we’re struggling economically.”

Minnesota leading in education innovation … Continue Reading

“Martin Luther King Would Have Occupied Wall Street”

Dr. Martin Luther King — if he were alive today — would have embraced the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Homes movement and spoken out against the current exploitative economic system, members of Occupy the Hood articulated during a spirited MLK Day march in Minneapolis.

“If you think that Martin Luther King would not have stood with Occupy, then you don’t know Dr. Martin Luther King,” said Mel Reeves, an activist with Occupy Minnesota. “If you think that he wouldn’t have stood with people in your neighborhood who’ve had their homes foreclosed upon, then you don’t know King. If you think he wouldn’t stand with the homeless and say out lout that they deserve homes and shelters, then you don’t know MLK.”

Nearly 200 activists from a diverse coalition of community organizing groups marched from the Salvation Army Harbor Light building to City Hall, where they sang a spirited Stevie Wonder version of “Happy birthday” and heard speeches and hip-hop performances. Their chants echoed the Occupy movement, and their speeches echoed the words of Dr. King — not just the well-known “I have a dream” speech on the National Mall in 1963, but King’s actions against poverty, inequality, and the Vietnam War.

“Dr. King was a drum major for justice. He imagined a world of social justice, and he fought for that world,” said Rose Brewer, an African-American studies professor at the University of Minnesota who said that King’s words for justice continue to ring true today. … Continue Reading

We work hard for this country

Meet Mr and Mrs Antonio Guerrero. Both have worked and lived in Des Moines for over 10 years. A few years ago they ran into some trouble with house payments made gone missing. When the bank said, “You need to leave,” they turned to Iowa CCI for help. Since then, Elvira has been a leader in the community helping others with similar problems.

Occupy Forces Local News to Focus on Real Issues

The Occupy movement has successfully put the economic injustice plaguing the United States on televisions across America, says Tina Dupuy, a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist and managing editor of Crooks and Liars.

The reason that most Americans were unaware of these issues before the Occupy movement caught fire this fall is that 60 percent of us get our news exclusively from local news sources. Those 30-minute local news segments devote a full 10 minutes to commercials and two minutes to “teasers” of stories to come. That leaves very little time for real news about real issues. Dupuy says that newscasters too often fill the gap with trivial stories such as reports about “Dancing with the Stars” or news of a cat stuck in a tree in Germany.

“We don’t have a real broad knowledge of issues that affect us, like the housing bubble or about what our local and national government is doing,” says Dupuy. “But at least now the local news is showing protest signs of what economic injustice is. They’re being forced to cover these issues and cover the raids, arrests and encampments and have the protestors on television talking about these issues.”

“Now we’ve seen our local news talk about the homeless population, talk about people who aren’t able to find jobs, talk about students who are now sharecroppers to banks because they have $200,000 in student loan debt — debt they can’t renegotiate.”