Sheila Regan

The Walker Art Center saved the best for last in this year's Out There Series, presenting Mariano Pensotti’s El Pasado Es Un Animal Grotesco (The Past is a Grotesque Animal) from January 26-29 at the McGuire Theater. The play, which had a successful year-long run in Argentina and is now on tour, is a riveting study of the lives of characters in four different stories that interconnect in coincidental ways near the end.MORE »

I went to a fascinating talk by Julie Landsman on Friday, where the author of “A White Teacher Talks about Race,” talked about racism and white privilege, and how the two have been instrumental in causing the achievement gap. Perhaps the most shocking part of the lecture, and discussion afterwards, was the connection that Landsman made between “Minnesota Nice” and Minnesota’s particular version of racism.MORE »

The Saint Paul Federation of Teachers (SPFT) is asking, in ongoing contract negotiations, that that the district agree to class size caps for high poverty schools and low poverty schools. The District agrees that class size limits are needed, but doesn't want to be tied to specific numbers by contract. MORE »

Last week, I interviewed several parents and teachers from St. Paul about class sizes in public schools. (I'm working on another article that hears from the district as well as the union.) In interviewing parents and teachers, what I found was not that they didn’t think class size was a problem, but that they were all cautious about speaking up about it. Though they wanted progress on the issue, some feared that talking about the problem would drive students away from public schools. MORE »