MN2020

Fighting the Freeload

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:00:24 +0000

By Katie Sanders, Interim Communications Director

Work hard. Benefit from hard work, time and investment, then give it all away to someone who doesn't invest, work hard or put in the time. Welcome to the realities of the proposed “right to work” constitutional amendment authored by two Minnesota Republicans Steve Drazkowski of Mazeppa in the House of Representatives, and Sen. Dave Thompson, R-Lakeville. The amendment would give people who work in union settings the ability to not pay union dues while reaping the benefits of a collectively bargained contract that improves their wages, working conditions and benefits.

Of course, it isn’t a long line to be drawn between undermining unions and defunding the Democrats agenda, because labor has traditionally helped to fund that party. Frankly, there are fewer places in the country than in Minnesota where many Republicans have been nursing minority resentment for 40 years. Already demonstrated by the unilateral reduction of only the Democrats budget for the session, while the Republican budget remained unmolested and the rejection of Ellen Anderson as an appointee of the Democratic Gov. Dayton, the Republican leadership has not attempted to hide its agenda for the session.

There are 23 other states* in the U.S. that are presently “right to work” states. Read through the list. Recognize any that consistently score higher than Minnesota? There aren’t any.

For the sake of argument, let us take the examples of our immediate neighbors, Iowa, North and South Dakota. All of them are “right to work” states. Relying on the statistics from the last census, here is a sample of what you find:

Source: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html for years 2006-2010

According to the BLS.gov, workers in “right-to-work” states average $5,333 a year less in income than those states without the legislation. Where do you suppose that money goes? If you guess the profit line of that company, you are correct. “Right to work,” or, what many are calling “the right to work for less,” serves as another example of the one percent profiting from the work of the 99%. So while we can debate the bias, or lack of in the census itself, you really can’t argue the facts: Minnesota is (traditionally) a state that invests in its own communities.

An Economic Policy Institute report released last month focused on Indiana’s (then) consideration of RTW yielded the following observation:

The only honest way to measure the effect of RTW is to separate out its impact from everything else. How much of Texas’ growth is due to warm weather, the oil industry, NASA, or migration from Mexico? Conducting measurements while holding everything else equal is called “regression analysis” in statistics, and it’s required for any article published in an academic journal. It is also what courts use to distinguish evidence admissible in lawsuits from what is termed “junk science.” The numbers provided by ALEC, the National Right to Work Committee, and other advocacy groups fail this most basic test; they hold nothing equal and simply assume that RTW explains growth.**

Based on the experiences of both Oklahoma and now Indiana, Minnesota simply doesn’t need the proposed RTW rhetoric. Unless, of course, the real goal is to keep company in undesired circles.

*Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah , Virginia, Wyoming.

**“Working Hard to Make Indiana Look Bad” by Gordon Lafer http://www.epi.org/publication/working-hard-indiana-bad-tortured-uphill/

Attack on Civil Rights: Deja Vu 1960s, 1930s…

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:00:16 +0000

By Lee Egerstrom, Economic Development Fellow

We shouldn’t be smiling, but the impulse is understandable. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota has put up a $1,000 bounty for anyone who can prove a case of voter fraud that could have been prevented by a proposed Constitutional amendment that will be on the ballot this November.

Back up about three paces and look around. The fact that no one will collect on the ACLU bounty becomes irrelevant.

What should become clear is that Minnesotans’ civil liberties are under attack on a wide front, a coordinated attack that has far-reaching economic and social consequences for future generations. It is an attack that will make Minnesota society even more divisive and lead to greater class warfare down the road.

“It is the civil rights battle all over again,” said Patricia Mack, a retiree who has become a volunteer for the Minneapolis chapter of the League of Women Voters to help people register to vote.

It isn’t just black people being singled out now, like a half century ago, she added. “The targets are the young, the elderly and the immigrants.”

Amending the state Constitution to restrict people’s lives and livelihood, and make it difficult to vote, all become personal liberty issues that will carry economic baggage for the state.

Mack wants to help people potentially harmed by Legislative actions and proposed Constitutional amendments to retain their ability to vote, she said. Requiring new voter identification records to register to vote is a case in point; her mother, who will soon turn 90, was born at home, in Mississippi.

“I don’t know where you’d start looking for the paperwork so she can continue to vote,” Mack said. And it would be an equally difficult problem for refugees and immigrants who may have become citizens but still wouldn’t have the paperwork to vote.

That, of course, is the purpose behind what the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University College of Law calls the “voter suppression effort” that is sweeping about half the U.S. states.

The League of Women Voters and the American Association of Retired People (AARP) in Minnesota are among more than 40 groups opposing Conservative-financed state efforts to suppress access to the polls.

Efforts to restrict same-sex marriages, assaults on labor’s ability to organize and collectively bargain for employees, the never-ending assault on schoolteachers and public employees, and by extension, to the children in public schools and people in need of basic public services, are all part of the same anti-civil liberties crusade.

“There is a connection. All these actions have a political agenda behind them,” said Dale Carpenter, the Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.

The attack extends to health care and the accessibility of ordinary people to gain health care insurance coverage. Carpenter said he is hopeful Minnesota Public Radio and other media will cover the oral arguments scheduled for March before the U.S. Supreme Court over the Constitutionality of what the most regressive forces call “ObamaCare," which is aimed at making more Americans eligible for minimal healthcare coverage.

“These arguments should be of interest to everyone interested in the purpose of the law,” Carpenter said.

All told, this attack is just another front in the assault on the lower classes, the middle class, the elderly, the young, the riff-raff, the heathens, or however the conservative regressive forces might describe the unworthy.

So-called "Right to Work" laws, which have been proposed as a Constitutional amendment in Minnesota, are like Voter ID actions that suppress workers rights to bargain and protect hard-fought gains made by labor in the 1930s to make labor markets work like a so-called “market.” Cutbacks in state support of government services shift burdens back to local governments and property taxpayers who can’t escape tax subsidies and unfair tax rates applied to the most privileged.

The never-ending attacks on schoolteachers and public school districts bring back memories of the battles over “separate but equal” school systems of the 1950s and 60s that were always separate, but never equal.

Race issues haven’t gone away, although indoor plumbing has scrubbed up how the issues are projected. Classism hasn’t gone away, either. Isolating communities, such as the gay and lesbian communities, follows the pattern of past U.S. and European practices of seeking scapegoats for political benefit.

What should alarm Minnesotans in 2012 is that rarely have so many regressive forces been marshaled as a political force in any given year. This means everyone’s individual rights; indeed fairness itself are under attack.

The Case of the Three Teachers, Part 2

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:00:52 +0000

By Michael Diedrich, Policy Associate

Yesterday, we met three teachers – Ms. Holmes, Mr. Chandler, and Ms. Spade – along with their principal, Ms. Doyle. Ms. Doyle observed each teacher deliver a tenth grade English lesson, and was now in the process of evaluating their work.

When evaluating each teacher, Ms. Doyle examined the results of the assessments each teacher had given his or her students to measure mastery of the lesson's objective. She also asked each teacher to examine the results independently and offer their own conclusions during the observation debrief.

For the methodical Ms. Holmes's lesson on identifying elements of similarity between poems, her mini-essay assessment found most students able to make connections at the level of plot, setting, and character and roughly half of students able to make connections between the themes of poems. It was clear from reviewing her students' assessments that the difficulties with thematic connections came from an incomplete understanding of theme as it relates to poetry.

The discussion-focused Mr. Chandler found that half of his students were consistently able to write research questions that met his expectations for clarity, focus, and depth, a quarter wrote good questions about half the time, and a quarter wrote questions that all needed improvement. Since his assessment only asked for students to submit a list of questions, he and Ms. Doyle couldn't be sure based on the data about where learning broke down for the students still struggling with the skill.

As for Ms. Spade, two-thirds of her students ranked themselves as comfortable connecting an author's text to its historical context, while a third expressed less comfort. Ms. Doyle, however, noted that assessing students' confidence doesn't say anything about how well they can actually perform the skill in question.

These three results demonstrate the importance of having good assessments of student learning. Creating assessments that (a) measure mastery and (b) are sufficiently detailed to explain which particular sub-skills were mastered and which require more work is an important skill for teachers that strengthens over time. Good assessments are critical to understanding the real effects of actual teacher actions, and assessments – like the MCAs – that don't provide that kind of information are useless for meaningfully evaluating teachers.

Good teacher evaluation requires actual knowledge of a teacher's classroom and practices. It also requires good evaluators. The three teachers we've looked at are fortunate to have a principal who understands their content area and knows how to conduct an evaluation with an eye towards encouraging growth rather than rooting out teachers to judge or punish. Too many teachers don't have that advantage, which means that too many students have teachers that aren't getting the kind of support they deserve.

Even given a universally excellent corps of knowledgeable, fair-minded principals, teachers should be evaluated by more than just their principal. Peer evaluations, especially by master teachers in their school or district, can be very helpful. Ms. Doyle may be a great evaluator for her English teachers, having previously taught that subject, but the social studies and music teachers at her school deserve evaluators who know their subjects, too.

Evaluators also need to have a fair system for assessing teachers, and they need to understand how to use that system. Giving an evaluator a rubric and a one-hour workshop is not enough, and poor use of an evaluation system is a great way to discredit its worth in the eyes of those being evaluated.

Beyond who is doing the evaluating, we also need to consider what the response to those evaluations will be. In general, the goal of teacher evaluation should be about encouraging growth and development. Teachers who receive negative evaluations from multiple evaluators deserve support (in the form of mentoring from master teachers and/or the school's instructional coaches) to help them improve. It is only when a teacher shows a persistent unwillingness or inability to improve that evaluations should be used to remove them from the classroom.

As for determining which teachers to lay off when the budget requires it, we need a clear, fair system with an appeals process to be in place and well-understood before we replace seniority as the default mechanism for determining layoff order. The quality of teaching demonstrated by Ms. Holmes, Mr. Chandler, and Ms. Spade has little or nothing to do with their students' test scores, and those scores do not have a place in determining which of the three to let go (assuming layoffs came down to one of the three).

Quality teaching is demonstrated by so many things other than test scores. “Student data” or “student outcomes” deserve a central role in evaluating teacher effectiveness, but policymakers should take care not to conflate those concepts with standardized test scores. We need many strong evaluators participating in a growth-oriented, fair process that encourages a professional mindset of continuously increasing effectiveness instead of constant fear about losing one's job based on test scores or a single dog-and-pony-show observation. Our students deserve teachers who are supported in getting better, not teachers intimidated by an unfair system.

Tuesday Talk: What do you envision for MN in 2025?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:00:40 +0000

By Katie Sanders, Interim Communications Director

In his State of the State address last week, Governor Dayton said, “I often wonder how our children and grandchildren will judge our stewardship. Will they thank us for leaving our state, nation, and world in better condition than when we inherited it? Or will they ask, ‘How could you have left us with such a mess?’.” Dayton goes on to say he’s hopeful about the future of Minnesota.

When you envision the Minnesota of 2025, what do you see?

Your Opinion Matters: MN2020 Reader Survey

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:46:58 +0000

By Rachel Weeks, Communications Specialist

Minnesota 2020 stays focused on the issues that really matter to Minnesota, and your feedback has always been useful in continuing that mission. With daily content, in-depth policy reports, videos, and weekly discussions, we hope to provide the analysis you depend on, in formats that work well for you.

Please take 5 minutes to fill out this reader survey and give us your feedback on what MN2020.org and Hindsight offer. Thank you!

view survey in a separate window

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

The Case of the Three Teachers, Part 1

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:00:29 +0000

By Michael Diedrich, Policy Associate

Hypothetical High School in Imaginary, Minnesota has three tenth grade English teachers: Ms. Holmes, Mr. Chandler, and Ms. Spade. All three have been teaching at Hypothetical for seven years, but they have very different styles. Their principal, Ms. Doyle, wants to know how each of the three is doing. Hypothetical's scores on the tenth grade MCA have been slowly trending upward for the past few years, but too many students were passed between the three teachers at semester each year for Ms. Doyle to know for sure what each teacher's “value-added” has been. A former English teacher herself, Ms. Doyle also knows there's a lot more to being good than an increase in reading comprehension scores.

Ms. Doyle decides to observe each teacher deliver a full lesson three times over the course of the year. Before each observation, she collects the teacher's stated objective for the lesson as well as any meaningful context that she needs to understand about why the teacher is making those particular choices. Ms. Doyle wants an objective for each lesson to confirm that her teachers have reasonable but ambitious goals in mind.

For one of her observed lessons, the methodical Ms. Holmes has adapted one of the state standards into an objective using student-friendly language: I can explain how different poems are like each other. The minute the bell rings, her students read two haiku and make a list of similarities and differences. They then share lists with a partner. Ms. Holmes calls on several partner pairs and creates class lists of similarities and differences. She projects four story elements – setting, character, plot, and theme – that the class already learned and asks a mixture of students to define the terms in their own words and offer modifications to their classmates' definitions.

Students then spend two minutes classifying the items on the lists they made earlier by story element. As students write, Ms. Holmes walks through the classroom, reading over their shoulders. Students then get two minutes to explain their classifications to their partners and jot down any questions they have. Ms. Holmes spends five minutes gathering and answering these questions, and then gives students the rest of the class to read a set of four poems, pick two, and write four or five paragraphs exploring the similarities between the two poems they chose. Observations are to be turned in at the end of class. As students work, Ms. Holmes walks through the class to answer questions or refer students to particular graphic organizers or other tools she's made available to help with writing.

Mr. Chandler is less regimented. His first observation comes at the beginning of a unit about writing research papers, and this particular lesson's objective is for students to be able to write a clear research question that is open-ended, yet defined enough to offer direction and the possibility of a conclusive answer. Instead of making that a student-friendly statement, he turns it into an inquiry: “How do I ask the right questions?” He opens his class with a few minutes of journaling with just that question as a prompt. He then leads the class through a discussion about their responses, focusing on what constitutes “the right questions” before getting to the matter of how to ask them. Finally, he has his students write down five or more “right questions” that interest them and turn the questions in.

As for Ms. Spade, her objective is, “Explain how an author's historical context impacts his or her writing.” She has prepared copies of eight different packets, each of which contains a picture of an author, a brief biography, a short story or group of poems by that author, and a graphic organizer with bubbles for “Historical Context” and “Elements of Writing” on opposite sides of a larger bubble labeled “Impacts of Context on Writing”. She begins the class by displaying the objective. She then asks if anyone has any questions. After fielding one question (“What's 'context' mean?”), she turns the kids loose, letting them roam the room to the different stations where she's put the packets. Once students have picked a packet, they can go wherever they want in the room to work on it. Ms. Spade circulates to make sure students are staying quiet and working alone. At the end of the class, she has students score how comfortable they are analyzing the effects of historical context on writing using a 1-5 scale and write a one-paragraph reflection on what they've learned and what questions they have.

When it comes time for Ms. Doyle to evaluate each teacher, she asks a series of questions:

How appropriate was the objective? How well did the assessment actually assess the objective? What do student results say about their mastery of the objective? What student actions led to those results? What teacher actions led to those student actions?

How did our three teachers do? What does all this mean for teacher evaluation in Minnesota? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Minnesota 2020 Journal: A Better Stadium Debate

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:00:36 +0000

By John Van Hecke, Executive Director & Fellow

Minnesota policymakers are contemplating building a new football stadium for the Minnesota Vikings. Minnesotans seem to like the Vikings and value community facilities but oppose, roughly 2-1, a publicly funded stadium.

I’m a great fan of perspective. It’s worth considering other recent stadium experiences. The Indianapolis Super Bowl provides a cautionary but not project-killing tale.

Indianapolis was, for the longest time, America’s crossroads. That was true for rail and roads. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ headquarters used to be located in Indianapolis. Indy is on, not off, the beaten path.

That said, it’s a good tick smaller than the Twin Cities’ combined metropolitan statistical area population of 3.6 million to Indianapolis’ 2.1 million. But, the Indianapolis area grew slightly faster between 2000 and 2010. As a result, they’ve invested in lots of new infrastructure. A football stadium is only the tip of that iceberg.

Indianapolis still owes money–public money-on the RCA/Hoosier Dome football stadium torn down to build the new $720 million Lucas Oil Stadium. Indy is paying for a sports facility that isn’t even there.

The Hoosier Dome, with a billowy Teflon and cable roof, looked a lot like the Metro Dome. Aesthetically, Lucas Oil Stadium is an improvement. When the Metro Dome is eventually felled, we’ll miss the facility’s events but not the building.

But, is the Lucas Oil Stadium a good deal for Indianapolis and Indiana? Well, that depends on how you feel about zip lines.

The NFL helped nudge the new stadium by promising Indy a Super Bowl. Indianapolis, like the Twin Cities, has a lot going for it but it’s not a big tourist destination. We love living here but we’re always perplexed why anyone would visit. The same holds for Indy.

The Super Bowl’s event planners decided that Indianapolis needed more event pizzazz. Their big idea? Four parallel 800 foot-long zip lines, inside the Super Bowl Village fan-experience area for ten bucks a go. Apart from, or perhaps in spite of, the football game, the zip line was huge. It was the week’s most popular element, selling out every ticket, every day. The locals loved the zip line.

None of this has anything to do with public stadium financing, at least not directly. No one in their right mind would pour $720 million into a zip line ride backdrop. But, stadiums aren’t only about their tenant sports teams. Stadiums reflect community identity, values and principles.

Set aside the greedy owner/rich athlete oppositional argument for a moment and contemplate stadium as public facility. People have always created public gathering space. Parks are perceived differently from publicly-owned professional sports facilities but in both cases, public investment creates the space in order to achieve a public good.

Parks are shared space, reflecting a community’s commitment to accessible recreational opportunity, a contemporary manifestation of the concept of public commons. Parks are for everyone but the benefit is much subtler and wider ranging than simply providing room for weenie roasts, youth hockey and Frisbee golf. Public space raises property values. A park adjacent house is worth more than a house considerably distant from a park because of the park’s public amenity derived value.

Creating public space creates private value. Surrendering public commons to private control tends to raise the public’s hackles which is what’s happening with the Vikings stadium debate. If a new stadium is substantially publicly funded yet effective control remains in non-public hands, is that facility still public space?

Yes and no.

No, it’s not public space because I can’t freely wander around a stadium like I could in Redwood County’s Plum Creek Park. Yes, it’s public space because a community use, however imperfect, is achieved through the Vikings football franchise and accompanying community identity. Losing the Vikings would be a community loss. The policy question, however, involves determining the right amount of public investment to achieve community good.

None of this is easy. If it were, we’d have already found the solution. It’s important to start, I think, with the goal of achieving collective public good. A stadium’s imposing cost must be matched against the public infrastructure’s benefit. A stadium is one element in a much larger mix of community facilities that serve us in slightly different fashions. Just as closing a public park comes with a social cost that transcends financial concerns, a stadium’s construction costs create community value.

Minnesota needs a stadium debate that moves us forward. The conservative model of not-so-subtly sticking someone else with the bill is failing our state. A deal that builds community, puts workers to work, creates values, shares financial risk and expands infrastructure would be a heckuva zip line ride.

VIDEO: Deep Impact of Medical Research

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:32 +0000

By Tom Niemisto, Video Production Specialist

To grasp the impact of medical research you have to look past the test tubes, charts, and computer models to see the ultimate goal: improved quality of life.

The Paul and Sheila Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Center was established in 2003 to focus on research and treatment for MD. At a recent open house, patients, families and advocates met with doctors and lab technicians who work tirelessly to develop treatments.

This research at the University of Minnesota improves medical outcomes, yet state funding has dropped in recent years. It's time to prioritize research that moves Minnesota forward.

Why Housing is a Bonding Bill Priority

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:32 +0000

By Colleen O'Connor Toberman, Guest Commentary

As the Minnesota Legislature and Governor Dayton work on their respective bonding bills, housing and homeless advocates are seeking $40 million in bonding money for affordable housing. Their vision for this $40 million includes preservation and improvement of federally subsidized affordable housing, development of supportive housing for those experiencing long-term homelessness, and creation of more housing opportunities for low-income households.

While housing will likely be only a small portion of the final bonding bill, it is a critical investment for all Minnesotans. Here are some of the reasons we can't afford to overlook housing in 2012:

Affordable housing is urgently needed. Minnesota has a serious housing affordability problem. Minnesota's rental vacancy rate has reached a ten-year low, causing rents to rise. Foreclosures have left neighborhoods littered with vacant homes in need of repair.

One-third of Minnesotans are considered cost-burdened by their housing (spending more than 30 percent of their income on their housing). An additional 13,100 are homeless on any given night.

Housing is a sound investment. Housing preservation is a crucial piece of this bonding proposal. Much of our affordable housing stock is 20-30 years old and requires efficiency improvements to lower operating costs. Publicly-owned housing could decline past the point of repair without interventions. Private landlords who serve low-income tenants have a tough time affording major updates without raising rents. In the next five years Minnesota risks losing up to 10,000 of these units if landlords opt to leave affordability programs such as Section 8 in order to make ends meet.

In addition, housing bonds leverage outside investment. One dollar in state investment into federally-assisted housing secures $5.50 in federal funding. State spending on other housing programs also leverages significant investment from nonprofits, housing developers, and private investors.

Housing also yields long-term taxpayer savings in education, social services, and health care because people in unstable crisis situations tend to use expensive crisis-care services. One recent study in Hennepin County targeted the heaviest users of homeless shelters, jail, emergency rooms, and detox centers. By providing permanent supportive housing and other service interventions, the program saved taxpayers an average of $13,000 per each individual housed. Children and youth (who comprise nearly half of the state's homeless population) achieve better educational and health outcomes when they have a stable home.

Housing bonds will benefit the entire state. Unlike some bonding projects proposed for localized communities, housing bonds will be distributed statewide through a competitive process overseen by the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. This provides trusted oversight and directs resources based on community need and project-readiness. Given that one-third of homeless Minnesotans live outside the metro area, we need this coordinated statewide effort.

In my work at Our Saviour's Housing I often tell people that ending homelessness isn't rocket science. We have excellent program models, proven successes, and demonstrated taxpayer savings. What we don't have is the community and political will to provide sufficient housing for those in need. Forty million in improved and expanded affordable housing is an investment opportunity we can't afford to pass up.

Colleen O'Connor Toberman is Volunteer Coordinator at Our Saviour's Housing in Minneapolis. Our Saviour's works to end adult homelessness with a range of programs that provide shelter, support, and a chance to start over. Our Saviour’s Housing is part of Our Saviour’s Community Services.

The Draconian Effort to Impose Restrictions on Unemployment Insurance

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:01:50 +0000

By Chase Brandau, Guest Commentary

In late 2008, 28-year-old Rochester native Tim Wynn injured his hand on the job while working as a machinist and was eventually unfairly fired due to the injury. “It was at that time I had to file for unemployment insurance,” Wynn recalls. “Which was only a little over $400 a month, but we were able to make it work with one of us still working.”

Wynn had to rely on unemployment insurance for over a year, while looking for a job and simultaneously trying to get the surgery he needed for his damaged hand, but could not afford to pay for. However, if the federal system for unemployment benefits had been overhauled to include new proposals, Wynn would not have qualified for unemployment insurance.

Working America, the grassroots organization for workers whose 250,000 members in Minnesota have expressed great concern about these new requirements, has been bringing awareness to this issue to Minnesotans all over the state. “One of these new state requirements would be to deny unemployment insurance claimants without a high school diploma from receiving benefits, unless they are currently enrolled in a GED program,” says Working America’s Minnesota State Director, Brianna Halverson. “Barriers that would require jobless workers have diplomas are simply unfair and unworkable when the waiting lists for GED programs are sometime years long.”

Wynn, like many, had a family early in life. “I did what I needed to do,” he said, “Which was to take responsibility for my family and go straight into the workforce. I knew my career choices would be limited, but I was willing to work hard to provide for my child.”

“I never thought that I would have been in the situation I was in, but the idea that not having a high school diploma would prevent me from receiving unemployment insurance is outrageous,” exclaimed Wynn. “Actually, it would discriminate about half of the co-workers I’ve ever known, many of whom are currently out of work and would be devastated by this.”

Brianna Halverson adds, “This provision seems part of a larger agenda to stigmatize unemployment insurance by suggesting that Americans are jobless because of their own failings, rather than because our economy still has six million fewer jobs than when the recession started.”

After three years, Wynn prevailed in holding his former employer accountable for unfairly firing him; allowing him to get the surgery to repair his wrist. Wynn now has medical clearance to work again. When asked what would have happened if he had been required to have a high school diploma to receive unemployment insurance, Wynn said: “We would have lost everything. Those benefits were the only thing that kept a roof over our heads and our spirits up.” He added that without the insurance, he would never have been able to get surgery and would have lost use of his hand forever.

Information in a January 26, 2012 statement from Committee of Ways and Means Democrats indicates that if House Republican Bill HR 3630 is enacted, more than 35,000 Minnesotans would lose unemployment insurance.

“I want others in Minnesota to stop looking at unemployment insurance as something that only costs taxpayers money and which can be easily cut,” says Wynn. “When people have money to stay above water, that means they’re spending it into the economy, which keeps many businesses, employees and families above water as well. Congress should not make being jobless even harder than it already is.”

Chase Brandau is the Minnesota member coordinator for Working America. Working America is the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO and has 3 million members who fight for good jobs and a just economy.

Aiming Higher

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:00:14 +0000

By Michael Diedrich, Policy Associate

By next school year, Minnesota's English/Language Arts classes must adopt the Minnesota variation of the Common Core Standards. Here's a sampling of the standards aimed at ninth and tenth graders:

Literature
“Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.”

Informational Text
“Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.”

Writing
“Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.”

These are worthy skills, and I dare say one or two might still challenge many successful adults. A student who meets these standards will be well-read, inquisitive, and critical in her thinking. He or she will move to eleventh and twelfth grade prepared for success, and will then be positioned to do well in college. A teacher who can work with all students and their families to develop these abilities should be lauded for achieving this ambitious goal.

A teacher who does those things, however, won't be recognized for it through test scores. We currently test ninth graders in writing and tenth graders in “reading comprehension,” a limited subset of skills related to literature and informational texts. The ninth grade writing test is, to be frank, a complete joke. Any student who can string together a marginally comprehensible beginning, middle, and end in response to a question about personal experience or opinion will pass the state writing test. The reading test is more difficult, but it's still a far cry from assessing the standards above.

It's true that we'll likely redesign our tests in response to the new standards – there are two different groups currently working on a consistent set of tests that can be used by all states that have adopted the Common Core – but those tests will still struggle to assess skills like the ones above. This is dangerous in a time when test scores continue to gain dominance as a measure of educator “success.”

The vast majority of standardized test questions go after the low-hanging fruit of academic standards, questions about knowledge and comprehension, but not about analysis, evaluation, or creation. The simple reason for this is logistical; we don't have a good way to assess every high school sophomores' sustained research project at the same time.

The risk here is that the tested knowledge and skills become the focus of education, when the real effort should be to cultivate higher order thinking. We have already seen curricula narrowed as a result of testing, and we have seen schools go to great lengths to get students enthusiastic about the fundamentally artificial achievement of doing well on the state test.

We have let our measurement become a goal it wasn't designed to be, and our standards have dropped as a result. I hear people argue that too many of our kids can't reach the low standards already being tested, and this is true. Part of the reason it's true, I'd suggest, is that many students – particularly those in low income environments – recognize the artificiality of the state tests. They see teachers trying to come up with reasons for going over particular skills, but the universally understood answer to, “Why are we doing this?” is, “Because it's on the test in the spring.” This does not motivate students.

The greatest effort I ever saw from my students was when I assigned tasks explicitly designed to get them ready for college. They weren't always successful, but they tried a lot harder and made a lot more progress than when we did work that was clearly aimed at test questions.

To continue to hold up test scores as the definition of success is to aim too low. It puts pressure on schools and teachers to lower their standards and fosters anxiety around a goal that nearly everybody, in their hearts, knows to be manufactured and inadequate. It's time to restore our tests to their original purpose: providing information about the overall outcomes of our educational system so that we can target support to the right places. Tests aren't meant to be the core of a carrot-and-stick system, and when we make them serve that purpose, the quality of education suffers.

Bringing Cooperation Into the Cities

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:00:42 +0000

By Lee Egerstrom, Economic Development Fellow

Local advocates for cooperatives are celebrating signs that momentum is gaining for legislation that gives cooperative business development a boost in urban and underserved communities like existing programs that serve rural areas.

Rep. Keith Ellison (DFL-Minn.) of Minneapolis was among four members of Congress in January to sign on as co-sponsors of a National Cooperative Development Act.

This bill has about a dozen sponsors so far. It is expected to gain strength through the coming year, however, as cooperatives and their trade associations participate in promotional events surrounding the United Nations-declared International Year of Cooperatives.

“What we would like to see are more programs in underserved communities that operate like successful co-op development programs from (U.S. Department of Agriculture) Rural Development,” said Madeline Kastler, president of the board for the Seward Co-op Grocery & Deli in Minneapolis.

USDA Rural Development is restricted to assisting cooperative development work in rural areas and small, rural cities. Separately, USDA works with rural electric and other rural utilities co-ops on development project as well, and they, too, are mostly in rural areas or in formerly rural and underserved communities when the co-ops were started.

For these reasons, the proposed federal legislation would create a National Development Center for Cooperatives within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Peter Frank, a Philadelphia co-op developer who is serving as the lead advocate for the bill.

It wouldn’t create a new bureaucracy, he said in an interview. Rather, the HUD program would work through existing co-op development centers, such as Cooperative Development Services (CDS) that is led by developer Kevin Edberg in St. Paul.

Minnesota has taken a step forward in co-op development within the past year with a USDA grant to the Agricultural Utilization and Research Institute (AURI) to form a co-op development center to help entrepreneurs start and expand co-ops. These efforts, too, are limited to AURI’s mission that builds on our agricultural resources, said Seward’s Kastler.

Recognizing these constraints nationwide, the Cooperation Works! network of co-op development centers is the primary advocate of the new federal legislation. AURI and Edberg’s CDS are members of the network.

In a 2011 report, “Cooperatively Moving Minnesota Forward,” Minnesota 2020 playfully asked people in the Twin Cities and in underserved communities to ponder entrepreneurial opportunities and then ask themselves, “What would farmers do?”

Minnesota history suggests farmers would form cooperatives to overcome market problems and increase economic opportunities. Minnesota is the nation’s largest state in terms of co-op enterprises and in economic activity generated by member-owned farm and food co-ops, credit unions, insurance and finance mutual co-ops, and other cooperatively owned service providers.

Four of the nation’s 10 largest cooperatives are Minnesota-based firms, according to the National Cooperative Bank’s annual rankings for 2011. Farmer-owned CHS Inc. of Inver Grove Heights and Land O’Lakes, of Arden Hills, were the two largest in generating revenue; AgriBank FCB in St. Paul was eighth, and HealthPartners, based in Bloomington was 10th and the largest co-op health care system.

Despite these successes, Kastler said Minnesota remains weak in starting worker-owned co-ops and non-traditional co-op ventures.

The Cooperation Works! network cites vivid examples across the nation that haven’t been adapted to meet needs in Minnesota. Two such examples deal with health care and health care services in neighboring states.

One is Cooperative Care at Wautoma, Wis., in which therapists and other home-care service providers assist the elderly and disabled with home care. By being members of this 50-person co-op, these health care providers can themselves form a pool to acquire affordable health insurance for themselves and their families, and the employment they create for themselves meets banking needs for predictable income for home mortgages.

Another is the Wilson Health Planning Collaborative that provides an integrated health system for 11 rural counties and the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota.

Still other examples are the TULIP Credit Union at Olympia, Wash., which was established to provide financial services to a low-income, underserved community; and WAGES, the Oakland, Calif., green cleaning business that has increased worker-owner incomes by 50 percent through business growth and profit distribution, and the co-op can provide health care in an industry where such benefits are rare.

Minnesota does have a smattering of employee-owned enterprises that are co-ops in spirit if not in legal standing from their articles of incorporation. Still, the numbers of such enterprises are small for a state that resembles Canada and Northern European countries for use of co-op business models.

The National Cooperative Development Act would help channel expertise from past co-op development successes to work with urban and underserved communities that have less and, in some cases, no past experience with cooperatives. The bill, however, faces obstacles.

One of the many things underserved communities have in common is this: They don’t operate Super PACS.

Photo credit: Doug Wallick, creative commons

Tuesday Talk: How do we reframe “Right to Work”?

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:00:20 +0000

By Katie Sanders, Interim Communications Director

Progressives need a better way to frame the so-called “Right to Work” legislation that has resurfaced at the State Capitol this session. While RTW is decades old, we still haven’t come up with a better, more accurate name. We can’t beat conservatives by fighting them with own language. Rather than “Right to Work”, we suggest calling it “Fewer Rights at Work”. What do you think?

Progressives should rebrand “right to work” as _______________________________________.

It should be called this because ______________

_______________________________________.

Renewable Energy and Health: Me, Myself and I

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:56 +0000

By Will Nissen, Fellow

In the continuing debate surrounding how, why, when, where and whether we should move decisively ahead with renewable energy sources, there are just as many reasons raised for opposing wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, biogas and others as there are for supporting them. There is one area, however, that gets swamped under the economic, environmental and political pros and cons of renewable energy in the public debate: Human health. Yet, despite the relative lack of public attention, I find it nearly impossible to build a case against renewables in this regard. If any human being seriously, selfishly and rationally considered what’s in his or her best long-term health interests, renewable energy would be a no-brainer.

Let’s consider the three traditional energy sources we use today: Coal, oil and natural gas. When extracted, processed and burned, each of these fossil fuels releases nasty chemicals into our air, water and soil. Oil and natural gas production facilities produce a long list of hazardous air pollutants and volatile organic compounds that can cause irritation of the skin, eyes and upper respiratory tract, dizziness, vomiting, blood disorders, nervous system defects, birth defects, cancer and more. Burning coal in power plants emits a similarly long list of hazardous pollutants into the air, including mercury, arsenic and lead, that can also cause irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, throat and breathing passages, neurological disorders, kidney and liver damage, birth defects, and cancer to name a few. Extracting coal through mountaintop removal and obtaining shale gas through fracking methods have significant real and potential impacts on lakes, rivers and aquifers on which many communities rely for safe drinking water sources. Both offshore oil extraction and onshore oil transport have similarly significant real and potential impacts on the water and soil resources that we rely on for fishing and agricultural food supplies. The list goes on.

Now let’s look at two main renewable energy sources that don’t require burning things: Wind and solar. Almost no negative health impacts occur to humans throughout the assembly, construction and power generation processes for these two renewable energy sources. No exposure to air emissions that contain mercury, arsenic and lead. No risk of contaminating drinking water with sulfates, benzene and other synthetic chemicals. No risk to our agricultural water supply, of exposing livestock to nasty chemicals, or crashing fish populations off the Alaskan and Gulf coasts.

However, I used the word “almost” above because I want to paint the whole picture here. The Minnesota Department of Health recently released a comprehensive report on the public health impacts of wind turbines. These impacts revolved largely around low-frequency noise and shadow flicker, with symptoms consisting of “annoyance” and “disturbance” that can be remedied by effective turbine siting and improved turbine technologies. Similarly, the Oregon Department of Transportation put together a concise and well-researched report on the health and safety concerns of photovoltaic solar panels. Although there are some hazardous materials involved in the manufacturing and assembly of an operable solar panel, these are considered occupational hazards that can be contained at the manufacturing site (i.e., not emitted into our air, water and soil), mitigated by automation in the manufacturing process, and can even be recycled back into assembly to avoid exposure to the external environment.

The differing human health impacts between burning fossil fuels and utilizing renewable energy are astounding. If we reframe the renewable energy debate to focus on what humans do best (which is to consider our own survival and well-being over that of the millions of other species on the planet, and even above the well-being of the planet itself), who can argue against renewables? We can and do argue continually about the environmental impacts of continuing to extract, refine and burn fossil fuels. Experts and politicians trade punches over the legitimacy of climate change and the impacts of releasing billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Average citizens weigh the impact of a short-term increase in electricity costs from implementing renewable energies against the long-term cost stability of ditching fossil fuels. But when the debate turns to human health, there is no reasonable argument against renewable energy.

Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree here. Economists have long known that people often don’t act rationally or take into account their long-term interests when making decisions. After all, people work, smoke, drink, medicate and eat themselves to death everyday. But if we’re going to make progress towards more sustainable and healthy means of producing energy, we need look no further then ourselves.

VIDEO: Grad Students Vie for Union

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:05 +0000

By Tom Niemisto, Video Production Specialist

University of Minnesota Twin Cities graduate students are following the trend of schools around the country to form a union under the United Auto Workers.

Graduate assistants perform crucial research, serve as a resource for undergrads, and even teach courses; yet they're often left out of contract negotiations effecting 5,000 assistants. Recent attention of union rights has fueled a resurgance and now they're closer than ever to an election to establish collective bargaining on campus.

Minnesota 2020 Journal: The Fewer Rights Act

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:00:52 +0000

By John Van Hecke, Executive Director & Fellow

In the war of words, progressives are not doing well. Conservative activists hold the rhetorical upper hand, obfuscating their policies’ true intent and making community- stabilizing and family- strengthening achievements an up-hill slog. Why? Because we’re trying to refute their ideas with their language. In the struggle for definition, we’re not just behind, we’re somewhere between 30 and 50 years behind.

Witness HF65, the proposed Minnesota “right to work” constitutional amendment bill. It’s a case in point. This legislation undermines collective bargaining rights. It has nothing to do with work but everything to do with using the state’s power to take hard-won protections from workers. Yet, hearing the phrase “right to work” with only the words themselves for guidance, most people assume it’s a worker protection initiative.

It’s not.

That disconnect is no mistake. It’s a deliberate, purposeful manipulation of language attempting to mislead rather than enlighten or clarify. “Right to work” is just one example.

Language is not neutral. Words matter. And, in public policy debates, words are everything. Word choice conveys idea’s meaning even if that idea is meant to mislead the listener. Conservative policy advocates want Minnesotans to infer conservative policy frames from seemingly objective descriptions.

This is not a new idea. English writer George Orwell explored totalitarian dictatorship’s use of fear to manipulate and control people. Based on Orwell’s observations of the Stalinist-era Soviet Union, he explored physical violence’s extension into intimidation through language. Orwell’s novels 1984 and Animal Farm not only contributed to English literature, they expanded the English language. We regularly use the terms big brother, doublethink and thought police, and define attempts to exert control through use of vague language as “Orwellian.”

When I describe “right to work” as Orwellian, it’s not complimentary.

In the last century, the two great progressive moments were the 1930s and the 1960s. Economic hardship compelled the New Deal, President Roosevelt’s policy framework addressing economic depression and poverty, but also rhetorical shorthand for a newly emergent political and cultural alliance. Post-World War II economic prosperity challenged that alliance, propelling civil rights confrontations. Although conflicts started in the 1950s, we commonly associate these challenges with the 1960s. The federal policy umbrella addressing needs was called the Great Society.

Conservatives have always portrayed government as unnecessarily intrusive, fixating on elected executives who don’t toe a conservative policy line. That was as true for President Roosevelt as it is for President Obama. Minnesota conservatives, separated by 80 years, use the same language to pummel Governor Dayton that they used to oppose Governor Floyd B. Olson. It’s remarkable how little some of our fights have changed.

While opposing big government in principle, conservatives warmly embrace a conservative policy agenda promoting government as long as it’s their kind of government. They demonstrate remarkable enthusiasm for activist government sidelining, marginalizing or eliminating the opposition.

HF65 will undermine collective bargaining rights. A quick review of states with similar laws reveals lower incomes, fewer workplace benefits and a much greater likelihood of injury or death on the job than in Minnesota. While we could call this proposal the “Poorer, Sicker, Deader Worker Bill”, let’s label it “The Fewer Rights Act.”

This title is not misleading. HF65 seeks to remove rights, substantially weakening the organizational basis for collective bargaining. Without a representative group, people are effectively barred from negotiating together.

“The Fewer Rights Act” passes the Orwellian smell test. The title isn’t duplicitous or misleading. I’m telling you, flat out, that HF65 will result in fewer effective rights. Plus, maintaining the status quo –not passing the bill- doesn’t ominously extend the authoritarian state’s dark, controlling reach. It just means that both sides, labor and management, can afford to hire lawyers during contract negotiations.

Advocating progressive public policy, it’s important to use our words to describe our values and our proposals. “Right to Work” is conservative-speak for using state authority to limit opportunity. “The Fewer Rights Bill” language reframes the conservative attacks, revealing them for what they are.

The best defense is a good offense. We tell our stories in our words, communicating our values and goals. We’ve spent decades assuming that family strengthening and community stabilizing laws’ very presence was a sufficient bulwark against conservative attacks. They’re not. Conservatives policy advocates have never rested; we mustn’t stop either.

VIDEO: Higher Ed Framed by Economy

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:28 +0000

By Tom Niemisto, Video Production Specialist

The weak economy impacts more than just markets and employment. Colleges and universities around Minnesota see more students chose their academic study based on trends in the marketplace and job security.

Augsburg College admissions counselor Peter Schattauer noted that that more students are concerned about entering the job market. With policy in place that supports high-impact learning and liberal arts choices, students tend to have better chances for a strong career.

Suppressing Votes of People with Disabilities

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:23 +0000

By Steve Larson, Guest Commentary

What if all the residents in your city faced unnecessary requirements that prevented them from exercising their right to vote? What if all citizens in your entire county faced hurdles that kept them from getting to the polls on Election Day? Proposals being debated this session to amend the constitution and require a photo ID for Minnesotans to vote could create just such a barrier for thousands of our citizens.

Last year, the Minnesota Legislature passed legislation to require every voter to present a state-approved photo ID before casting a ballot. Gov. Dayton vetoed this bill, so voter ID proponents are adopting a new strategy -- amending the Minnesota Constitution. Bills introduced so far to do that are HF 1597 and HF 1662 (both authored by Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer), SF 1577 (authored by Sen. Scott Newman), SF 1578 (authored by Sen. Al DeKruif), and SF 1659 (authored by Sen. Joe Gimse). If a majority in both houses passes one of these proposals, the measure would go on the ballot for the 2012 elections for voters to decide. The Governor cannot veto proposed amendments once they pass the Legislature.

People with disabilities are one of several groups in our society that are less likely to have an ID. Ten percent of voters with disabilities do not have a photo ID, according to the League of Women Voters Minnesota (LWV-MN). This would mean that as many as 27,000 Minnesotans with disabilities would have to overcome barriers to vote, based on conservative estimates from figures in the 2009 American Community Survey. The figure of 27,000 equals the entire population of Fridley, Minnesota or all of the residents in Le Sueur County.

Voter ID could impose costs on people with disabilities, even if the state provides the IDs themselves at no cost. Getting a photo ID can mean paying for a copy of one’s birth certificate; in Minnesota, that equals $26. Roberta Blomster, a self-advocate who lives in Anoka County and is a member of one of our affiliated chapters, The Arc Greater Twin Cities, described barriers that people with disabilities would face during her testimony at a Minnesota Senate hearing on SF 1577 on February 1, 2012:

“…[A]dults with disabilities are having the hardest time with getting and/or keeping jobs during this tough economic time….You are expecting us to pay for supporting documents needed for the Voter ID, but if we are not working, then we won’t have the money for the supporting documents such as a birth certificate. Another [problem] is transportation. How can people with disabilities get to the places that would administer Voter ID if they don’t drive themselves and they don’t have other transportation to fall back on like their family members, Metro Mobility, etc.?”

Voter ID may sound reasonable, since an ID is required for important activities such as driving a car, cashing a check, or buying liquor. These activities, however, are not basic rights. Voting, on the other hand, IS a fundamental right, protected in law, and central to everyone’s participation in our democracy.

Minnesota elections have been virtually free of fraud. In 2006, there were six alleged cases of non-citizens voting out of 2,202,937 votes cast. In 2008, there were seven people who were accused of impersonating other voters out of 2,921,498 votes cast; none of the seven was convicted. Lawyers for both candidates in the 2008 U.S. Senate recount found no instances of voter fraud.

For decades, disability advocates like The Arc Minnesota have fought to bring people with disabilities out of the shadows and into our communities. People with disabilities want to be involved in our cities and towns and have a say in their lives. Voter ID laws hinder their ability to have a voice in deciding who their leaders will be, and can therefore silence that voice in decisions that affect them.

Roberta Blomster summed up our concerns about Voter ID well in her Senate testimony: “People with disabilities will be truly disenfranchised by this. You will be turning voting from a right to a privilege, and that is what scares the disability community.” If such laws are approved in Minnesota, they will suppress voting, not increase the integrity of our electoral system and procedures. Minnesota legislators should oppose any voter ID bills introduced this session.

Steve Larson is The Arc Minnesota’s Senior Policy Director. The Arc Minnesota is a non-profit organization that promotes and protects the human rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and actively supports their full inclusion and participation in the community throughout their lifetimes.

Sometimes They Really Are Out to Get You

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:19 +0000

By Michael Diedrich, Policy Associate

I try not to engage in irresponsible conspiracy-mongering. It's too easy to get caught up in paranoia and beliefs about far-reaching networks advancing shadowy agendas...usually a recipe for gratuitous stress and anxiety. The world is interesting enough without conjuring up the Illuminati or faked moon landings. But then there are the times when a little responsible conspiracy-mongering is called for.

A perfect example here is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The national syndicate of conservative legislators was recently profiled to great effect by Beth Hawkins at MinnPost. She does a great job bringing home how ALEC is affecting Minnesota's politics around issues like one of my recent favorite topics, teacher seniority.

Here's the quick introduction to ALEC: It's a regular get-together for conservative legislators (and the corporations that love them) that hammers out model bills to be submitted to state legislatures. Meeting three times a year, they produce enough of these bills to simultaneously raise a plethora of issues. The sheer scale of the onslaught can make it difficult for progressives to respond. Here's a sampling of education-related issues of interest for ALEC: “charter schools accessibility, accountability and transparency, standards for teacher excellence, open enrollment, vouchers, tax credits, and blended learning options.” Any of those sound familiar?

Again, Beth Hawkins has done a great job diving into the details of ALEC, and I'd encourage everyone to head over to her piece to get the full rundown. One last Minnesota-centric tidbit worth sharing: the heads of Minnesota's House Education Finance and Education Reform Committees, as well as the head of Minnesota's Senate Education Committee are all ALEC members.

The fight that started over teacher seniority and layoffs? Straight off the ALEC wishlist, and we're not the only state having that argument right now. The attacks on collective bargaining in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana? Same thing. (And you can bet that if the 2010 elections had turned out slightly differently here, Minnesota would be in the same situation.)

Now, does this mean that all things related to “education reform” are being maneuvered by ALEC's twining tentacles? Of course not. Nor is everyone who advocates for changes to our education system a pawn of ALEC's agenda. Rather than seeing ALEC as a cause, it is itself a symptom of the broader conservative pathology around education.

Education remains one of the great public institutions of this country, which makes it inherently suspect to a certain conservative mindset that always sees market efficiency as superior to public equity. ALEC wasn't behind Milton Friedman's call to replace public schools with vouchers; it just shares a similar mindset about the magical market (though I suspect the typical ALEC member's understanding of markets is rather less sophisticated than Professor Friedman's).

Regardless of the particular provenance of this attitude towards education, the end product is the same: A concerted, coordinated conservative effort to undermine (not improve) public education as we know it. From the perspective of this particular pathology, “transparency” really means “finding ways to say public schools are bad,” “school choice” means “siphoning students away from public schools,” and “accountability” means “hurting teachers' unions.” Again, this is not to say that all who advocate for transparency, school choice, or accountability are part of a larger conspiracy to tear down public education. Unfortunately, too many of the bill authors are.

If progressives want to change the tenor of this conversation, it's time to stop playing defense. We need proactive approaches to education reform that reflect progressive values and respect the people who make education happen. As believers in the importance of strong public investment, we also have a vested interest in making sure public institutions produce the results we want while staying committed to a vision of true social equity.

For too long, the only serious conversations we've had about education policy have been determined by conservative agendas. The public has been shown a false choice between destructive “reforms” and a de facto defense of a system that still isn't producing the results we want. It's time to present another choice, one that involves teachers, families, administrators, and everyone else with a stake in education (which is all of us) making the case for a well-supported public institution that serves the needs of all children and treats the workers who provide those services like professionals.

These Minnesota legislators belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC):

Minnesota House of Representatives
Bruce Anderson (19A – R-Buffalo Township)
Paul Anderson (13A – R-Starbuck)
King Banaian (15B – R-St. Cloud)
Michael Beard (35A – R-Shakopee)
Mike Benson (30B – R-Rochester)
Matt Dean (52B – R-Dellwood)
Connie Doepke (33B – R-Orono)
Steve Drazkowski (28B – R-Mazeppa)
Sondra Erickson (16A – R-Princeton)
Pat Garofalo (36B – R-Farmington)
Mary Kiffmeyer (16B – R-Big Lake)
Carol McFarlane (53B – R-White Bear Lake)
Pam Myhra (40A – R-Burnsville)
Joyce Peppin (32A – R-Rogers)
Linda Runbeck (52A – R-Circle Pines)
Ron Shimanski (18A – R-Silver Lake)
Dean Urdahl (18B – R-Grove City)
Kurt Zellers (32B – R-Maple Grove)

Minnesota Senate
Roger Chamberlain (District 53 – R-Lino Lakes)
Ted Daley (District 38 – R-Eagan)
Chris Gerlach (District 37 – R-Apple Valley)
Gretchen Hoffman (District 10 – R-Vergas)
John Howe (District 28 – R-Red Wing)
Michael Jungbauer (District 48 – R-East Bethel)
Warren Limmer (District 32 – R-Maple Grove)
Gen Olson (District 33 – R-Minnetrista)
Mike Parry (District 26 – R-Waseca)

Source: Minnesota Common Cause: “Legislating Under the Influence,” pp.14-15

Partisan vs. Particular: Building a Health Exchange That Works for Minnesota

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:02 +0000

By Sarah Greenfield, Guest Commentary

Recently an editorial ran in the Star Tribune calling on the GOP to start participating in Minnesota’s Health Exchange development, and calling on Governor Dayton not to move too far ahead without them. Calls for bi-partisanship, cooperation, and compromise are all the rage. And for some good reason—recently, gridlock has crippled our state legislature and US Congress.

Unfortunately it can be hard to decide what to compromise on, or not, when it comes to a Health Exchange because most of us don’t know enough about what a Health Exchange is, and why it matters. So let’s step back for just a minute.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA , also referred to as “Obamacare”) was signed into law March 23rd, 2010. A lot of things didn’t make it into the law—anyone remember the public option?—but a lot of things did. A simple way to think about the ACA is as an interwoven set of changes to our current health insurance system:

We won big-time insurance reforms, like no more pre-existing condition denials or life-time limits. More or less in exchange for reforms, the bill passed an individual mandate, requiring (almost) everyone to have health insurance. Because the bill requires everyone to have insurance, we had to make insurance more affordable, through subsidies for private insurance and a huge expansion of Medicaid. To help people access private insurance, public programs, and all these new benefits, we required states to set up Health Benefits Exchanges - websites where individuals and small businesses can compare apples to apples and easily enroll in quality, affordable health insurance plans.

In Minnesota, over a million people are expected to enroll through our Exchange, including 300,000 who currently don’t have insurance. According to an independent actuarial analysis, Minnesota families can expect to save $500 to $700 a year on insurance through the Exchange. So what’s the big deal? Exchanges are a pretty bi-partisan, if not Republican, proposal by origin. Current opposition to them is largely part of the “anything related to Obamacare is dirty” pandemic, not based on real policy concerns. But not all Exchanges are, or will be, created equal. Minnesota gets to decide, for example:

Will our Exchange be a public or private entity, or something in-between, and should insurance companies who stand to profit from the Exchange be allowed on its Governance Board? Will our Exchange be held accountable to health-improvement goals, including reduction of health disparities, and if so how should that disparity be measured? Will just any insurance products be sold on our Exchange, or only those that meet high standards for affordability and quality? In other words, can our Exchange negotiate with insurance companies? Will Minnesota offer a Basic Health Plan, basically a continuation of MinnesotaCare, to provide stable, quality coverage to low-income working families, or should they be dropped into the private insurance market?

These and other decisions are in front of us. Currently, the Dayton administration has been leading the Exchange development process. The Department of Commerce, which oversees insurance, appointed an Exchange Advisory Task Force to guide this development. The GOP majority refused to appoint legislators to that Task Force, and last year they didn’t grant a hearing to any Exchange bill, including their own from Representative Gottwalt. This year they say will be different, and that’s where the calls for compromise and bi-partisanship come in.

Governor Dayton has said that his administration has the authority needed to “get to the starting gate:” to develop our Exchange enough over the coming year to get approval from the feds that we are on track to have our Exchange up and running by 2014. He has also said they want legislative participation if they can get it, and that makes sense. Now it’s important for the public (that’s us) to understand enough about what kind of an Exchange will serve our families, businesses, and communities. That way we can tell our legislature and our administration not just to “compromise,” but to move forward an Exchange that will really work for Minnesota. We may not want them to be partisan, but we do need them to be particular.

Sarah Greenfield is the Health Care Program Manager at Take Action Minnesota. To learn more, or get involved can contact her directly at 651-379-0751.