News Day

In St. Paul, Kira Trevino is missing since February 24 and believed dead. Police charged her husband with murdering her. The body of 16-year-old Anna Lynn Hurd was found in a Maplewood park last weekend. Her 17-year-old boyfriend has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Continue reading →

“Go to the back of the line” is one of the mantras of the current immigration debate, but few know what the line looks like. Continue reading →

The Star Tribune and Pioneer Press headlined Minnesota’s “D” rating on school reforms — but that rating could be a good thing. The bad grade came from Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, and has nothing at all to do with how well Minnesota educates students. By most measures, Minnesota’s student achievement is among the best in the nation. The pattern of the StudentsFirst report is consistent: states with high student achievement get failing grades on its education “reform” rating. Continue reading →

UPDATED 6:20 p.m., 12/25/2012 – Christmas Eve — a time of peace, a time of good will, a time to handcuff and carry off to jail a 75-year-old American Indian leader who came downtown to shop and have a cup of coffee?  Continue reading →

I admit it — when I read that the latest fiscal cliff debate was over chained versus unchained CPI, my first reaction was to hide my head under a pillow until it all goes away. I’m a policy wonk, but I don’t like economic esoterica, and I did not want to have to learn about a whole new concept in order to follow the budget debate. Continue reading →

Don’t look at the news today,

don’t read it

Stay away from Twitter and Facebook

Close your ears

I have seen it and it is  

too terrible to bear

Don’t look at the news

Let one of us remain 

Untouched by this latest horror

if only for today

Today, a lot of national attention focused on a front-page photograph of a man trapped in the path of an oncoming subway train. Was publishing that photograph good journalism, ethical journalism? Or does the question of the ethics of publishing the photograph miss a larger point? Continue reading →

“Forty years ago, a teenager leaving high school—with or without a diploma—could find a job in a local factory. Twenty years ago, even as manufacturing jobs moved offshore, young people could still gain a foothold in the workforce through neighborhood stores and restaurants. Amid the housing boom of the past decade, youth with some training could find a career track in the construction field. but today—with millions of jobs lost and experienced workers scrambling for every available position—America’s young people stand last in line for jobs.” Youth and Work: Restoring teen and young adult connections to opportunity Continue reading →

The Education Department released new high school graduation data November 26, and the news isn’t good. Overall, Minnesota doesn’t do well, with an overall 77 percent four-year graduate rate placing us in the lower 50 percent of all states. Even worse, Minnesota has the biggest graduation gap, with 35 percentage points separating the African American graduation rate of 49 percent from the white graduation rate of 84 percent.  Only Nevada has a lower African American graduation rate than Minnesota. Continue reading →

To hear the pundits tell it, the nation is roaring toward a fiscal cliff on January1, and likely to run right off the edge of the cliff like the Wile E. Coyote, plunging back into recession. Luckily for all of us, that pundit picture is just as much a cartoon as the original Road Runner. Continue reading →