What’s missing in this chart?
from Minnesota Budget Bites by Ben Horowitz
It’s time to update a critical support for our state’s poorest kids that has been deteriorating for 30 years: the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP). MFIP is intended to help a family meet their basic needs when they’ve fallen on tough times. It supplies a basic cash grant while parents are working for pay too low to support their family, or when parents are looking for work.
What can Hillary learn from Bernie?
from Wry Wing Politics by Joe Loveland
The most important qualifications for a President to have are the right values and vision, the backbone to stick to that their values and vision, the communications chops to persuade the American people, the ability to enact the related policy agenda, and the judgment to react wisely to developments that we can’t yet foresee. Those things are infinitely more important than the ability to score the highest marks in the editorial boards’ Wonk Olympics.
Don’t use biblical logic to deny transgender dignity
from TC Jewfolk by Carin Mrotz and Rabbi Michael Latz
As Jews, we deeply appreciate when our sacred texts are lifted into view. But as Jews working to pursue justice and the humanity of all people, we are distressed by this use of our text, by Soucheray’s misrepresentation of King Solomon, to deny transgender and gender nonconforming people safe access to, as he says, “going No. 1 or No.2.”
Is there a right way to train better teachers?
from News Day by Mary Turck
The Hechinger Report’s three-part series on teacher education programs offers fascinating glimpses inside three classrooms, alongside appalling pictures of first-year teachers’ home lives. Meghan Sanchez has abandoned her teacher training program’s emphasis on ” 100 percent compliance with directions 100 percent of the time” as unrealistic for wiggly 4-year-olds who can’t always sit “criss-cross-applesauce” on command. Michael Duklewski has switched from correcting his middle-schoolers’ negative behavior to pointing out positive behavior, and finds that “I’m just happier, because I’m saying good things all the time instead of harping on bad things.” Amit Reddy engages his eighth-grade science students in pouring liquids into a beaker to determine their density, but worries about the lagging grades of his “chatty” after-lunch class section. And all three of the featured first-year teachers get up before 6 a.m. and collapse into bed at night after working 12-15 hour days. They have little or no time for family life of their own.
Independent thinker? Think independent bookseller!
from Poking Around with Mary by Mary Treacy
When legendary philosopher and social critic Jerry Seinfeld reminds fans that “a bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking” he refers to thinking about something more than “books about nothing.” I’m sure he’s also not thinking about chains but about the thinking possibilities that thrive in the atmosphere that only an independent bookstore can create. … Often nestled in quiet neighborhoods, indies reflect, shape and create vibrant communities of individual and collaborative thinking about ideas, stories, what’s been and what has yet to be.
Faribault is about blankets, beer, blue cheese & a whole lot more
from Minnesota Prairie Roots by Audrey Kletscher Helbling
MY COMMUNITY OF FARIBAULT could easily fall into that grey space of endless towns perched along Interstate 35 from the Texas-Mexico border to Duluth in northeastern Minnesota.
But Faribault, pronounced fair-uh-boh, because it’s a French name, isn’t just any other community. This is a city of some 23,000 with a strong sense of history. Drive a few miles off I-35 to see the aged buildings along and branching off Central Avenue and scattered throughout town. We have historic churches (like the Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour) and the historic Shattuck-St. Mary’s School and wonderful old houses.
Dawn’s story
from #unitecloud by Dawn Holler
I’ve always had a heart for people from other cultures. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a culturally diverse area of St. Paul. Maybe it’s because I have many cultures represented in my family tree. It could even be that short stint I did as a banker on SCSU’s campus, working with students from all over the world. But, whatever the reason, God has placed a love for other cultures on my heart and, because of that, I am thrilled with the changes in our community.
When I first moved to St. Cloud back in the 80s, I missed the diversity of my hometown. I missed hearing other languages spoken and experiencing other cultures through their celebrations, food and clothing. But, times have changed and St. Cloud is now a rich, vibrant community with people from all over the world coming together.
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