ST. PAUL LEGAL LEDGER CAPITOL REPORT Minnesota’s enviable but temporary projected budget surplus must be applied first to investing in our increasingly diverse workforce, easily the most important resource on which our long-term prosperity depends. Amid all the conventional signs of growth and prosperity at the top end, with high profits and low unemployment generally, far too many Minnesotans underneath continue to suffer from economic... Read More
ST. PAUL LEGAL LEDGER CAPITOL REPORT Imagine a wild-eyed futurist getting up in front of a crowd of Minnesota business and education leaders in 1995, and boldly making these three outlandish predictions. “Over the next 20 years” our imaginary futurist intones, “a racial and economic inequality crisis will overtake us in Minnesota. The percentage of kids from economically distressed homes and thus qualified for free-and-reduc... Read More
ST. PAUL LEGAL LEDGER CAPITOL REPORT At a recent post-session media event for the MinneMinds coalition — a broad-based movement focused on expanding early childhood education and closing our opportunity gaps in education — one rather startling chart stood out. The bar graph showed total public investment in pre-kindergarten learning for our littlest Minnesotans rising by healthy leaps. Counting a significant increase in funding fo... Read More
ST. PAUL LEGAL LEDGER CAPITOL REPORT The Lumina Foundation, a highly regarded national organization that pushes for increasing higher education attainment in the United States, recently issued a 50-state report that praises Minnesota for gradual progress in recent years and for our above-average percentage of adults who obtain postsecondary degrees and credentials. Lumina’s method of measurement puts Minnesota at 48 percent of 2.9 milli... Read More
ST. PAUL LEGAL LEDGER CAPITOL REPORT Robert Putnam, the acclaimed Harvard professor and author of the 2000 best-seller “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” was in Duluth recently to promote his new book, “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis.” Both books emphasize the problem of growing isolation and community fragmentation for American society. His latest book asserts that this civic dise... Read More