Minnesota's keenest competition isn't South Dakota. It's South Korea — and all the other countries that shine brighter than the North Star state in global test scores, particularly in math and science.
The sooner the legislature coalesces around the reality that Minnesota competes in the global economy and has to educate and govern accordingly, the better chance of a substantive, substantial session, as opposed to the test of wills between a republican governor and a democratic house and senate.
This well-needed paradigm shift is part personal and part political. Culturally, the Lake Woebegon "every child being above average" is held by the average Minnesotan, which creates social cohesion, but social complacency as well, as this feel-good factor is in comparison to other states, not other countries. This "Minnesota Exceptionalism" is grounded in a high high-school graduation rate and civic participation, particularly in voting.
But the result of this voting — state elected officials — should have as a measurable objective to be not the brainpower state, but the global brainpower center, with an educational system driving economic and social development for decades.
The good news is this can be a bipartisan goal, which is an imperative in a divided government. The bad news is that so much legislative attention has been diverted by divisive social issues and partisan politics.But on the state level, education is not an issue; it's the issue. And in a divided government, it cuts across the political fault lines of gender, generation and geography, let alone socioeconomic strata. Every Minnesotan benefits if the state has the smartest students in the world.
Indeed, with technology making business location more malleable, the state has much at stake right now (we're not selling the weather). But key politicians also have much at stake, with the governor at minimum trying to leave a legacy, if not leave as a Vice Presidential candidate. And with a near-quarter-century inability to elect a governor, the DFL needs to govern from the legislative branch and prove to the voters they deserve the mandate they were rewarded with on November 7.
Not every solution need be a new law nor associated with a tax increase. And much of the approach may not only address education, but infrastructure, public safety and transportation/transit as well.
But these are strategies and tactics. What's needed is to truly think global and act local, with a legislatively mandated objective.