Feds might do what Minnesota couldn’t on school bullying

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Congress is currently rewriting and replacing the defunct No Child Left Behind law. This new bill, dubbed the Strengthening America’s Schools Act, should focus on student learning and building thinking skills and limits inflexible test standards. However, buried in the 1,150-page bill is an act Minnesota Senator Al Franken introduced, called the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA). Franken, along with others, is seeking to extend title IX style discrimination protection to the LGBT community by extending civil rights protections to students based on sexuality and gender identity.

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Invisible workers take a stand

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In case you haven’t lately, stop and think for a second about how the stores you shop in get so clean. The answer, of course, is that a few people work really hard late at night to make sure the rest of us never have to think about it. If you’ve ever worked one of those jobs, you know the hours and the work are very difficult. If it’s been a few years since you worked one of those jobs, you’d be surprised to learn how much harder the work has become. Wages have been dropping and the number of workers hired to clean entire stores has gone down, forcing the remaining workers to work twice as hard. Continue Reading

Zero tolerance stifles mental health education

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Growing up in the St. Paul public school system, I only remember “zero tolerance” as the standard operating procedure for discipline. Obviously, this went for major offenses, such as weapons or drugs on school grounds, but it also applied in many situations that were not so immediately applicable, leading to suspension for acts like fighting or even disrespecting teachers. Police officers were a common sight in school (I even knew one by name), and officers on horseback were present for about a week following a rather large fight that ended in 16 arrests. My experience seems to echo what is happening across the nation, as zero tolerance has led to huge, and racially imbalanced, suspension rates, a “school to prison pipeline” that leaves students stranded on the fringes of society and has no measurable effect on school violence. Continue Reading

Conservative student loan interest plan helps… how?

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The federally subsidized student loan interest (Stafford) rate expires on June 30, 2013. At that time, the undergraduate loan rate doubles from 3.4% to 6.8%. Historically, rates were set at 6.8% for both undergraduate and graduate students, until, in 2008, undergraduate rates steadily declined to the present 3.4% Congress must act or undergraduate rates will automatically return to 6.8%. Congress should set the rate equal to the 10-year Treasury bill rate. Here’s why. Continue Reading

Climate change and Minnesota: A look into the future

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With the devastating tornado that recently hit Oklahoma, fear has started to spread about the possible connections to climate change. The scientific jury is still out on whether climate change really impacted this tornado, but they are in agreement that climate change is indeed happening. And with CO2 levels passing a historic 400 ppm benchmark, the world is looking at an unsure environmental future. So what does climate change mean for the U.S. and more importantly, what does it mean for Minnesota? Continue Reading

Getting good policy takes time

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Good policy is usually not the result from knee jerk reactions to a tragedy. That may be the silver lining in Minnesota’s and national lawmakers inaction when it comes to the Sandy Hook school shooting that left 26 children and adults dead. Unfortunately while the nation debates gun laws, there’s very little conversation about all the issues that are resulting in so many lives lost to gun violence in this country. Continue Reading

The ugliness receding snow reveals

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For most of us in Minnesota, the snow is gone and big clumps of sand and gravel are all that remain from another upper Midwestern winter. This is just one of many environmental concerns that face policymakers and citizens as we transition to spring. Unless cities invest in clean up, such debris will end up in our waterways. Other common sights like yard waste, pet waste, and unnaturally green lawns all potentially create hazards for aquatic life and the rivers we cherish. Continue Reading