Almanac: At the Capitol

• The actions on energy and smoking were significant. I'm sure there were others.


• I remain hopeful that we'll still see breakthroughs on some of the issues with the most genuine political opportunity. Transportation funding/pricing comes to mind as the most obvious.


• I remain hopeful that some of the worst ideas of the session (e.g. charter school moratorium) will go down with the vetoes, while some of the best ideas (mental health reform) will be resuscitated.

• At least in the short term, this session may "do no harm." That's not bad.


• But faced with potential long-term crises in education, workforce readiness, tax revenue sustainability, long-term care and health care policy more generally, I think that "not doing harm" might be good enough for right now, but not for the next generation. Major opportunities for reform to address these issues have probably passed.

Leadership is about vision, hope and investment in the future. (No — I don't mean the type of "investment" that is only spending money.)

More than anything, it's not the lack of "harm" that concerns me. It's the lack of leadership.

• It should come as no surprise to readers here that there was a strong undercurrent among some of the audience that the decline in news coverage from the two papers meant the end to informed citizens and policy-makers. One audience member went so far as to suggest that the public "scared" him and he couldn't stand the thought of them playing a stronger role through blogs, etc.


• Well — I've spent time with the public and most of them inspire me. What scares and concerns me is when "experts" see journalism as simply the broadcasting of information through the radio waves or through newsprint to an ignorant public. Rather than seeing it as the collection of information and the distillation of information into knowledge for a public that is trying to pay attention and who's intuitive insight on policy is really pretty good.


• We're clearly moving into a new era, but we don't fully have the infrastructure in place to realize the potential of this new era.


• Again, none of this is not necessarily insight. But I can see the consequences of this transition in gaps in public affairs reporting which aren't sufficiently made up for in non-mainstream media. Examples?


• The under-reporting of the proposed moratorium on charter schools. What's really behind the issue, and what does this say about the status of public education reform and improvement in Minnesota?


• The potential for "good news" in the mental health reform proposals. While this has received some notice, no one to my knowledge has looked into the policy process that has helped to produce this opportunity. It's a hopeful model for other tough issues.

• 2+2=5. I've seen arguments made by smart and powerful people that not only ignore the facts on a number of important education issues, they willfully spread incorrect information about the cost and public nature of charter schools. I'm not so naive as to think that politics doesn't sometimes involve the "creative presentation of information," but I'd at least like to think that in a discussion about education that we could have our own opinions, but not our own facts.


• Team spririt gone bad. I myself have fallen into a particularly troubling argument about "charters v districts" — as if one was automatically better than the other. This frankly is a little like Ford arguing with General Moters about who's best. The fact is: this classification of a school matters less than the curriculum, leadership, governance, etc. of the individual school. And we're not getting the outcomes we need from education generally. The last thing we need is the fight that was started by the Senate's move to cap charter schools. Charters were meant to be a means to an end, not an end in themselves.


• This will go down on your permanent record. What we do now will have long-term impacts. I have to give credit to David Laird and anyone raising the issue of the future of our workforce. The consequences of our current discussion are really troubling because we are simply not addressing the future needs for a well-trained and responsive workforce for people in the E-16 system and current workforce right now. We're arguing about short-term issues, and not the long-term consequences of doing nothing.


• Schoolhouse Rocks. Perhaps more importantly (and more hopefully), I think we've lost sight of the fundamental democratic purpose of education. This starts to get really "fuzzy" if we're not careful about it, but this fundamental purpose is also a point of common ground, and something that actually motivates people to have a better discussion. I was reluctant to make this point for a while, but have been surprised by how postively people react to it. This democratic purpose includes the need for an educated workforce. People who don’t have the education to get a good job will be less productive citizens.

What I learned on my Spring break? It's time to have a new conversation on education. The one we have is failing us. Perhaps its even time to start the class all over again.

Please help me prove David Strom and Joel Kramer wrong!

I love David Strom and Joel Kramer like only a policy and political fiend could. I consider David a friend (that should invite me on his radio show more). But, dear Legislature, I hope you will help me prove them both wrong wrong wrong.

At a recent Twin West Chamber breakfast, both David and Joel agreed that the national political dynamics would not help get things done this year in Minnesota. I was the optimist. I said the dynamics would work in our favor. I hoped that the Governor's potential national ambitions, and the Democrat's need to demonstrate their new political muscle, would set the stage for policy progress.

After all, Minnesota has a political opportunity here that we haven't seen in over 10 years: a clear mandate from the public in terms of priority issues; a unified legislature; a surplus; good/workable ideas on the table, etc. Both the Governor and the legislative leadership "win" if they address a key set of issues this year.

But with very little time left in the first part of this session, I'm worried David and Joel might be right.

• Are base budgets really "off the table"? I hear they are. How on earth are we going to innovate if changes to current spending are off the table?


• I understand that health care is tough, but waiting until next year?! There is never going to be a single silver-bullet on health care. There are a number of good ideas on the table — one of them our idea on establishing a consumer voice in the medical care market.


• I agree with the Governor's call to reinvent high school and improve financial aid for higher education — but are any of the proposals on the table sufficient to accomplish the task?

We’re at the point in the session where comments like this are mostly just trying to read the tea leaves — so I’ll keep my thoughts short.

Reviewing the last week’s conversation on education from somewhat of a distance, I’m left with two questions that I wish were front-and-center in the minds of legislators and the media who cover them. I’m glad we’re talking about education, it just seems like the conversation should be smarter.

1. What is lost if we do nothing on education? Many DFL reactions implied that we are doing pretty good already — so why the talk for radical changes from the Governor. A system that succeeds for one half the students is not good enough — not given the fundamental role that education plays in our democracy and economy. (See more from me on this at my blog.) This might mean that half the system stays about the same, but it should compel us to consider significant changes for the remaining students who fail in our current system of high school. I totally understand the DFL’s need to be skeptical of anything put forward by the other party and the other branch of government, but I wish it came with a greater sense of urgency about changing the status quo.


2. Will the proposals work — to scale?! Changing the status quo is going to take more than pilot projects put forward by the Governor or anyone — and I’m still compelled by the argument that we are likely to need new schools as much as changing the schools we have. Are the proposals put forward by anyone premised on evidence that they will work — or in the very least an absence of evidence that they don’t work? And do they offer the chance to achieve the scale of change we’ll need. We should know by now that money won’t work on its own. In fact — no single solution will work on its own.