So why is my college tuition so high? Or why learning no longer seems like the primary goal of colleges and universities

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This is the season. It’s the time when high school seniors are waiting to hear from colleges regarding whether they have been accepted. But once the joy or disappointment sets in after acceptance or rejection letters have been mailed, another set of emotions and questions kick in for students and parents who ask: “How do we know we made the right choice to get a good education and how will we pay for college? Continue Reading

What does it mean to be a progressive Democrat today?

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What does it mean to be a Democrat let alone a progressive one these days? The question was prompted by my recent op-ed in Minnpost where in response to an argument against the State of Minnesota granting the NFL tax exemptions to host the Super Bowl, one reader wrote that he supported public funding for the stadium along with the tax breaks, and that he was a Democrat and a “fairly far to the left one too.” Continue Reading

Marijuana and the criminal justice-prison industrial complex

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America has fought a losing war and it is time to end it. No, this is not a reference to Afghanistan or the War on Terrorism. It is to the four decade long war on drugs that has failed miserably. It is time to shift away from a drug policy that criminalizes its use to one which treats it as a public health problem. This should be the policy regardless of whether Minnesota endorses medical marijuana. Richard Nixon launched the “war on drugs” with his presidency in 1968 and coined the phrase in a 1971 speech. Since Nixon the war on drugs has been a mainstay of Republican if not bipartisan politics. The 1974 New York Rockefeller Drug laws penalized individuals with sentences of 15, 25 years, or even life in prison for possession of small amount of marijuana. Increased mandatory minimum sentences for crimes were ratcheted up for drugs and the move toward “three strikes and you are out laws” in the 1990s were adopted in part as a result of the drive to prosecute drug crimes. All told in the last decade the federal government has annually spent $20-25 billion on drug enforcement with states kicking in an additional $10-15 billion if not more. What has this money purchased? Continue Reading

Bridging the achievement gap: The limits of education reform

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The educational achievement gap will not be solved by better teaching, or by firing teachers or bashing unions. Or by vouchers, charter schools, teacher pay for performance, pre-school, all day kindergarten, or simply by a new curriculum. The achievement gap is a matter of race and class that may not be solved by the schools or educators alone. It requires attention to the social economic forces that define the lives of students and which affect their ability to learn. Continue Reading

Previewing the 2014 Minnesota legislative session: Issues and contrasting agendas

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This week the Minnesota Legislature reconvenes. To predict the dynamics of the 2014 session one needs to understand how the governor, the House and the Senate, and the Democrats and Republicans all have different interests in what should happen in this short session. While in some cases their interests may converge, there are also powerful forces that may push them in very different directions, potentially creating interesting conflicts that set up the 2014 elections. Specifically, look to see how party, region, and chamber and branch of government create contrasting interests in what happens in the 2014 session. Continue Reading

Race, class and Ranked Choice Voting: Why the Jacobs-Miller study is largely irrelevant

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Race and class structurally divide the United States. Economically we live in two nations separate but unequal, with political power and privilege fractured along this divide. Thus it comes as no surprise that Professors Larry Jacobs and Joanne Miller recently found that the use of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) by voters in the 2013 Minneapolis elections largely tracked this class and racial divide. Conceding that their statistics are largely correct, their analysis and conclusions are largely irrelevant to the debate about RCV, voting, or political power in Minneapolis or the United States. Continue Reading

Women and Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor: The tokenism of power

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Why would anyone want to be lieutenant governor in Minnesota, let alone a woman who wants to have real political power and influence? Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon decision not to seek a second term on the DFL ticket with Mark Dayton should not have come as a surprise. Nor should Senator Katie Sieben’s decision not to want to leave the legislature and become Dayton’s running mate. What is a surprise is that Minnesota still has the office of Lieutenant Governor. Now is a terrific opportunity to ask the question whether the Minnesota Constitution should be amended to eliminate of the office of Lieutenant Governor? Continue Reading

The right to vote in a 21st Century democracy: Thoughts from my new book

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In just a few weeks Minnesotans will attend their party caucuses as part of the process of selecting the candidates who will run for governor and other constitutional offices, U.S. Senator and House of Representatives, and the Minnesota House of Representatives, among other positions. Yet if the past is any indication of what will happen, very few individuals will attend these caucuses–some by choice–but others will be excluded by economic or practical necessity, without the option of participating by absentee voting or through technologies that would make it possible to engage, even halfway around the world. Continue Reading