6 surprising trends about Minnesota's Millennials

from Community Matters by Craig Helmstetter and Jane Tigan

The millennial generation (currently age 14-33), also known as generation Y or the echo boomers, has become the subject of a lot of media attention and broad generalizations. So, for our Minnesota Compass Annual Meeting we dug into the data and pulled out some trends related specifically to this age group in Minnesota. We found some interesting surprises we share with you here.

Density is an historic resource

from streets.mn by Bill Lindeke

Though it may be overblown, Saint Paul and Minneapolis seem to be full of fights between “urbanists” and “preservationists” over the future of our cities. Examples include the ongoing spats over an historic but run-down house in Uptown, old single-story buildings in Dinkytown, or the width of sidewalks in Lowertown. In each of these cases, urbanists and preservationists have ended up calling each other names, rolling their eyes, and holding all-night vigils and/or emergency strategy meetings. With so much emotion on display, something must be going on.

If you think Wisconsinites love beer, brats & cheese, you’d be right

from Minnesota Prairie Roots by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

IN THREE YEARS of exploring Wisconsin, I’ve learned a few things:

Wisconsinites are crazy about their Packers.

Wisconsinites love their brats.

Cheese is, indeed, big in Wisconsin.

And, finally, Wisconsin residents love their beer.

Not necessarily in that order.

What a daughter learned from her dad about working in a 'Mad Men' world

from Duets Blog by Martha Engel

If my dad were not the man that he is, my life easily could have been much different, as Mad Men reminds me. I am grateful for the experiences of observing my dad at work. Dad taught me a lot about working in a fast-paced, “Mad Men” world – without being Don Draper. Here are a few things that I’ve learned

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Duluth rolls out a welcome mat made of snow for a beleaguered Salt Lake City family.

CC/Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Phyllis Schlafly speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md.

In the late 1970s, when I was still a girl watching Mary Tyler Moore forge an unmarried career in Minneapolis television, Phyllis Schlafly was fighting to ensure the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) never became a part of the U.S. constitution. “Thanks” in large part to her efforts, the amendment died in 1982, having gained ratification in 35 of the 38 states necessary for constitutional inclusion.

Mary Stanik

More than 30 years later, the nearly 90-year-old Schlafly is still wielding fighting words in her battle against things she deems liberal and destructive to America.

Her latest target is equal pay for women. I guess it’s not enough for her that the Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act. Schlafly, who used to thank her husband for allowing her to vacate her wifely duties so she could travel the country denouncing the ERA and telling her followers to wear the right lipstick and earrings so they wouldn’t look like feminists or the political activists they actually were, now says women who earn as much as men won’t get husbands. In an opinion for the Christian Post, she wrote that “suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.”

'Dirty, dangerous, outside work'

Schlafly also said that much of the reason women make less than men is because “women place a much higher value on pleasant working conditions: a clean, comfortable, air-conditioned office with congenial co-workers. Men, on the other hand, are more willing to endure unpleasant working conditions to earn higher pay, doing dirty, dangerous, outside work.”      

I don’t know if Schlafly gets out much these days (and since she is a widow, she doesn't need permission anymore), but I’m guessing she’s not made much contact with the women who have managed to punch through discriminatory blocks so that they might do dirty, dangerous, outside work where many of them still don’t make as much as their male colleagues. And I didn’t know all of the men making so much more money were doing dirty, dangerous, outside work. Did you? I wonder if the 95.4 percent of the Fortune 500 and 1000 CEOs who are men, men who earned a median total compensation of $9.7 million in 2012, thought it was more important to have a clean, air-conditioned office rather than venture into dirty, dangerous, outside work?

The thing is, in 2011 (according to the Face the Facts project of the George Washington University), 28 percent of wives in two-earner U.S. households made more than their husbands. That figure increased 65 percent between 1987 and 2011. Have any of you heard of mass divorce filings by the husbands of such women, based solely on the fact that their wives make more money? No, you have not.

What people like Schlafly don’t want to realize is that there are a great many reasons why some women don’t marry. I’ll say that instead of “find husbands,” because, to be honest, if getting married is an overwhelming priority for a woman, she will, believe me, “find” some sort of husband. Sites like Match.com don’t exist just to provide opportunities for sexual escapades. Now, whether the husband such a woman marries is a decent guy who may or may not make more than she does is another matter rather overlooked by Schlafly and her acolytes.

The reasons are legion

As a never-married straight woman, I can tell you about at least a few of the reasons many women never marry. Some are as you’ve seen in movies, that we’ve never found the right guy. Some of that is because we were looking in the wrong places. Or we wanted Captain Perfection (but not necessarily Captain Makes-More-Money-Than-I-Do; certainly not in these days of the Lingering Great Recession) and we didn’t realize until later that he doesn’t exist. Some of us were focused on careers, careers our mothers didn’t dare dream of, careers that sometimes paid us more than our male colleagues but sometimes did not.

I don’t know if Schlafly would want to know that one (quite successful) man I’ve known for a while told me if my book ever becomes a big success, maybe is made into a movie, and I make lots more than he does, he would be thrilled to let me support him while he goes fishing and smokes cigarillos. He also said he would be happy (enough) to vacuum and cook, because I told him that for as charming as he is, fishing and cigarillos alone won’t cut it.

Ladies, whether you are single or married, it’s OK to make more than the men you are married to and/or like. Some of them might even thank you for your earnings ability.

And if they vacuum and like watching Mary Tyler Moore reruns, so much the better.

Mary Stanik, a writer and public-relations professional, lives in Minneapolis. She is the author of the novel "Life Erupted."

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If you're interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below — or consider writing a letter or a longer-form Community Voices commentary. (For more information about Community Voices, email Susan Albright at salbright@minnpost.com.)

It was almost a year ago that the Minneapolis City Council stepped in to save a house constructed in 1893 by master builder Theron Potter Healy. 

But that was a Council election ago, and Friday, by an 11-2 vote, a body with seven new members voted 11-2 to let owner Mike Crow demolish the 15-unit rooming house at 2320 Colfax Avenue South.

Crow claims that despite the publicity the demolition dispute has caused, no one, other than the developer, has come forward with an offer to buy the house a stone's throw from 24th & Hennepin.

However, Nicole Curtis, HGTV’s Rehab Addict, told reporters that she made a cash offer for the house of $400,000 last spring and again earlier this week. She said she also offered to move the house at a cost of $100,000.

“People live in this city because of the history. We just approved Indigenous [People’s] Day because we support our history, and yet we just voted to tear it down,” said Curtis following the council action. “I don’t understand how you can do that. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand.”

Publicity stunt or not, Council Member Blong Yang — who along with Lisa Goodman cast the only vote against demolition — said, “From last year’s council vote until today, my understanding is there was an offer. Even if it wasn’t in the form of a purchase agreement, it was a verbal offer that was made.”

One of the key things that changed from last year was a council more committed to density; another was that last year’s Council Member, Meg Tuthill, opposed demolition, and her 2014 successor, Lisa Bender, voted for it. That earned Bender brickbats from Curtis’s legion of social media followers.

Council Member Elizabeth Glidden — who voted a year ago to block demolition but this time voted to raze the building — stated, “This is not a decision about the city ordering a demolition. This is about the rights of a property owner who has said this is what he wants to do with the property.”

The property is a designated historic resource, which means it is believed to have “historical, cultural, architectural, archaeological or engineering significance” as spelled out in the city code of ordinances. It has not been upgraded to historical designation as a landmark.

There are currently more than 100 Healy houses in Minneapolis, many with historical designation. At a hearing on the new application for demolition, city staff said the property lost integrity following a fire in the 1980s and major interior remodeling.

Historic preservationists said the damage was not enough to send 2320 to the dumpsters.

“The Council Members' rhetoric about the city does not match their actions,” said Anders Christiansen, a student of Healy houses. “So we’re going to displace 25 low-income people, get rid of their homes, we’re going to not listen to the neighborhood which does not support this project."

Added Christiansen, “We’re going to support a developer who never appeared before the neighborhood. We’re going to support a landlord who didn’t fix up his property and benefits.”

Christiansen said he expects to challenge in court the decision to move ahead with demolition: “I am in it as long as the building is standing.”

I forgot my notebook.

That’s the first thing I thought after I drove from my home in St. Cloud to Hector on a Monday evening to work on this story. The second thing was, “What do I do now?”

The convenience store out on the highway might have a tablet or a legal pad, but if they didn’t, the next option was Olivia, a 15-minute jaunt down US 212, which has a few more stores that might be open at 8:30 p.m. Failing that, I’d have to turn around and drive the half-hour to Walgreen’s in Hutchinson.

Fortunately, my mother and stepfather, who live on the town’s west side, had one to spare.

* * *

Hector, Minnesota 1989: You could shop for groceries at Super Valu or the Red Owl. If you needed bolts or a hammer, you could go to Our Own Hardware or Coast to Coast. You could get your oil changed at the service station and run over to Jacoby Drug to fill your prescription and snag a birthday card for grandma while you waited.

Hector, Minnesota 2014: The Super Valu is a vacant lot, and the Red Owl, which became Nelson’s Marketplace, has been closed for years. The Our Own Hardware is long gone, and the Coast to Coast was a Hardware Hank that went out of business in March.

Photo by Steve Neuman

As you may have guessed, you won’t be able to get that prescription filled at Jacoby Drug, either. That building is a NAPA auto parts store now, so you can get some spark plugs for the car you’ll need to get all the stuff you can’t get in town anymore. Make sure you can install them yourself, since the service station is closed, too.

* * *

But this isn’t the story of another backwater small town that’s dying on the vine. The farmers that ring the city of 1,131 are doing just fine.

“We’ve definitely had a good run here. Last year was down, but that was mostly in comparison to how good 2011 and 2012 were,” said Jeff Kramer, who has farmed north of Hector since the early-1980s.

At the American Bar & Grill and The Other Place, the two taverns in town, it’s not uncommon to hear speculation about just how much some area farmers bid on auction for available farmland.

Photo by Steve Neuman

Loftness Specialized Equipment, on Hector’s south end, employs 85 people manufacturing items for farms like Kramer’s. Suttle Apparatus, the factory out on 212 founded by Canterbury Park owner Curt Sampson, has people working full-time on the floor and part-time from home.

There are employers and jobs and money to spend; that money just has to be spent elsewhere. That “elsewhere,” more often than not, is 30-odd miles to the northeast.

* * *

The big box stores of Hutchinson (Wal-Mart, Target, Cashwise, Shopko, Menard’s and a mall) were a common theme when I asked the town’s residents about Main Street’s decline.

Wikimedia Commons

“People here will carpool into a van, drive to Hutchinson, fill the van up with groceries and head home,” said John Hubin, publisher of the News-Mirror, the newspaper that serves Hector and other area communities. “Then they’ll complain that they can’t get anything in town anymore.”

Said Kramer, the farmer: “I’ve been to Hutchinson and Olivia already today, and it’s not even 1 o’clock. I’m fortunate that the John Deere dealership is relatively close in Bird Island,” 10 minutes west on 212.

“I want to spend my money in Hector and keep my money in town, but I can’t,” said Dane Vander Voort, a truck driver who lives just off of Main. “It’s a pain in the ass.

“You have to plan ahead. When my daughter Ella was born, we’d go to Hutchinson and buy three-four boxes of diapers. When we got down to one box left, then we knew it was time to go back.”

It’s worth noting at this point just how treacherous the roads between Hector and Hutchinson can be in this board-flat part of the state during the winter. If you want a more direct, profanity-laced description of same, I can give you the home number of Howard Neuman, a lifelong Hector resident and also my dad.

* * *

At 7 on Tuesday morning, the parking lots are full at Loftness and Suttle. With the exception of ten or so cars and trucks (mostly trucks) in front of Pete’s Grill, Main Street is empty. Lori Carlson is also a lifelong resident, and she is there for breakfast.

She, too, is worried about the town's future, but notes that her workplace (ITCI, a telecommunications company) is successful, and so is the local lumberyard and greenhouse. They’re just not on the main drag, which doesn’t help the perception of the town for those passing through. She’s also aware that “you can’t buy groceries at any of those places.”

Photo by Steve Neuman

The city has an Economic Development Authority working to attract a new hardware store and other types of businesses to Hector, but there’s no immediate change on the horizon.

Hubin, the newspaper publisher, who used to sit on the EDA board, says, “What they should do is send the Southwest Light Rail all the way southwest, to Marshall or Worthington. You’ve got people in the Cities living on top of each other, but there’s plenty of land out here, and we just need some forward-thinking types to take the ball and run with it. There’s so damn much potential it’s scary.”

Unless and until this potential is filled, as my stepfather told me before I left, “You never have to worry about getting a good parking spot at the post office.”

Photo by Denise Peterson

The morning coffee fellas at Pete's Grill.

CC/Flickr/Jannis Andrija Schnitzer

Too many students come to school after spending nights in homeless shelters, in cars, or with multiple families squeezed into one apartment.

Each decision to close school due to the weather is a challenge for school superintendents. With this year’s historic cold, time and again we weighed logistical questions about classroom time, curricula, and families’ needs. But for the thousands of Minnesota students who are homeless, our decisions to close school also meant that other basic needs might not be met.

More than 300,000 students rely on school for free breakfast and lunch each year in Minnesota. During the 2013 school year, 13,098 students were identified as homeless or precariously housed. Minnesota students came to school after spending nights in homeless shelters, in cars, or with multiple families squeezed into one apartment.

If just for cost reasons alone, we would support investments in housing, such as $100 million in bonding for housing proposed at the Minnesota Legislature this year.

Minnesota school districts spend an additional $8 million each year transporting homeless students to keep them stable in their schools for the year, a requirement under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

Among very low-income students, those who have stable housing do better in school than those who are homeless, University of Minnesota research finds. As we should, we commit resources to make sure that homelessness does not dictate our students’ future.

But the intangible costs of homelessness take an even greater toll.

Lives made harsh

Every day teachers and other school staff hear from students the realities of their young lives made harsh by lack of safe and stable housing.

• A student’s mom loses both of her part-time jobs, and the family starts moving from one place to another, sometimes staying just a week before their welcome wears out.

• A teacher notices a student falling asleep in the classroom. Privately he confides that he’s uncertain where he will be spending the night — again.

• A worried student tells her teacher that she wants to check on her younger siblings — or even her parents – because they are anxious about not having a place to live with her parents unable to find work.

Younger students are more likely to share such stories with teachers day-to-day. The older ones more often turn to teachers only reluctantly, out of desperation.

When large numbers of homeless students change schools throughout the year, disruption ensues not just in their lives, but for their peers, too. When children can’t form trusting relationships due to constant instability, when they act out in class, or can’t concentrate because of inadequate sleep, whole classrooms are set adrift from their studies.

In communities like Duluth, shelters are frequently full. Families turned away at night have little choice but to go elsewhere. So we worry most about the children who simply fail to show up again at school.

Above and beyond

Caring teachers often go above and beyond — making sure that school food shelves are stocked, holding coat or mitten drives each year, and keeping hygiene supplies on hand. Some districts send nutritious snacks home to those in greatest need, for an early supper or perhaps the only supper.

State leaders are also doing their part. Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius is executing action steps outlined by first the state’s first Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. Last year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers ramped up efforts to prevent homelessness and to support homeless youth.

As superintendents we, too, wish to address student homelessness proactively. For this reason, we support bonding for housing at the state Legislature this year.

When students are safe, stable, and primed for learning, we can focus our energy where it should be today: on the business of educating our students. Otherwise, how will our youth be ready for the challenges of tomorrow?

Submitted by the following Minnesota school superintendents: Michael Munoz (Rochester), William Gronseth (Duluth), Lynne Kovash (Moorhead), Mark Bonine (Brooklyn Center),  Bernadeia Johnson (Minneapolis), Valeria Silva (St. Paul), Dennis Carlson (Anoka Hennepin), Les Fujitake (Bloomington).

WANT TO ADD YOUR VOICE?

If you're interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below — or consider writing a letter or a longer-form Community Voices commentary. (For more information about Community Voices, email Susan Albright at salbright@minnpost.com.)

Talk about your Late Romantics ... . It took an out-of-towner — the New York Times — to inform us that newly re-signed Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä was romantically involved with concertmaster Erin Keefe. Vänskä acknowledges the relationship may have fueled management's initial reluctance to bring him back. “There may be board members who take it as my being on the players’ side. And I’m guessing, but maybe that’s the reason they don’t want to give me any power,” Vänskä muses. Keefe is now one of the players angling to get out of town; Vänskä says he'll recuse himself from decisions involving her fate.

Fouling our depleted groundwater … .Josephine Marcotty of the Strib writes, “Four-fifths of the cropland that butts up against the streams and rivers of southern Minnesota is missing at least some of the legally required natural borders that are the first step in safeguarding waters that flow to the Mississippi River, Lake Pepin and eventually the Gulf of Mexico, according to the first detailed mapping of the region’s rivers.”

Elsewhere in water world, MPR's Elizabeth Dunbar notes, “The [3M] site is one of more than two dozen places in the Twin Cities metro area where groundwater is being pumped and treated to contain pollution. All told, this adds up to 4 billion gallons of water every year in a region where concern is rising about the long-term availability and use of groundwater. In the north and east metro in particular, where the state is trying a new approach to groundwater use, pollution containment accounts for more than 10 percent of all groundwater being pumped, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.”

Assessments … they bite. Maya Rao of the Strib files a piece on what southwest Minneapolis homeowners and businesses are paying for street repair. “Special assessments for roadwork have surged in Minneapolis over the last three years, jumping 50 percent to $11.7 million in 2013. About half that came from the southwest, where residents have long complained about high taxes.” Higher costs stem from paving more roads, though with less-than-full rebuilds.

The Strib wants the legislature to let willing local governments use Ranked Choice Voting. Noting the Senate won't hear a municipal-consent bill, the paper editorializes: “RCV is going to look better and better to Minnesotans who worry about too little participation and too much polarization in their state and local democracy. The Legislature should give municipalities the freedom to try RCV — and the guidance to do it well.”

Gawker.com runs a long piece by Kehla Backman titled “The More You Commit, the More the Leader Loves You” about — you guessed it — her experience with Victor Barnard, the “Maidens” guru.“Victor's rise to power was gradual and methodical, starting at those group picnics and continuing long-distance even before he moved to Rush City. That's the thing about cults, and about predators. There's a slow but constant grooming. You don't really realize how drastically things have changed, so it feels normal. ... The more you commit to it the more Jesus loves you. The more Victor loves you. Victor became just as much of a focus as God and Jesus."

Did you catch the Washington Post map of states and their average level of college grad debt? It’s kind of stunning. Short story: Minnesota grads are carrying more than 46 other states.

North Dakota’s cutting in our drone boom … . According to the AP, “[E]xperts say North Dakota is well-positioned to take advantage of ... a first-of-its-kind academic program, an established military presence, a financial commitment and favorable airspace conditions.” Translation? “Empty.”

They have decided to live by a different code over in “It’s Working”-land.Taylor Anderson of the AP writes, “Wisconsin may soon be in a minority of states that don't allow voters to register online. The state, long considered a model for its high voter turnout and election administration, seems stubbornly old-fashioned as it sticks to paper registration while others move to online systems that are simpler, cheaper and less prone to errors, elections experts told lawmakers recently. Legislators from both parties have expressed interest in online registration, but progress has been stymied by a longstanding fight over same-day voter registration and other party divisions.” The GOP is concerned with … voter fraud.

Every so often a first kiss is a winner … . Mary Ann Grossman of the PiPress reports, “Kristal Leebrick's poem ‘New Year Love,’ inspired by her first kiss in junior high school, has won Garrison Keillor's Common Good Books second poetry contest. … ‘I certainly didn't see this coming,’ said Leebrick, who was vacationing in Florida when Keillor left a phone message telling her she'd won the $1,000 prize.” Where I went to school, first kisses were a venial sin. Second kisses were mortal.

Before MinnRoast 2014 recedes into history, we want to recognize those who made it possible.

• Our 57 generous sponsors, especially Stinson Leonard Street as Reception Host, and equally generous in-kind donors. Thank you all.
• The cast and crew, led by first-time MinnRoast director Ashleigh Swenson and seven-time MinnRoast choreographer DeAnne Sherman.
• Well-known Minnesotans who took the stage with style: political comedian Lizz Winstead, Gov. Mark Dayton, Sen. Al Franken, U of M President Eric Kaler, former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, and many other political and media personalities.

• Our talented guest musicians: Music director Eric Edwalds and Le Cirque Rouge Cabaret & Burlesque Show Band. First-time MinnRoast vocalists Mugsy, Erin Schwab and Jim Graves. Singers from VocalEssence, led by assistant artistic director Tesfa Wondemagegnehu and accompanied on piano by artistic director Philip Brunelle. Tesfa as Tevye? Spine-tingling. Ask anyone who was there.
• Our lyricists: Head writer Al Sicherman created almost enough song parodies for two whole shows. Jill Field, Marlys Harris, Joe Kimball, Lee Lynch, Corey Anderson (and I) chipped in one song apiece. 
• The staff and volunteers who worked for months to promote the event and make it run smoothly. Special thanks to MinnPost office manager Bethany Hollenkamp and creative director Corey Anderson.
• The audience, almost 1,400 strong, who bought tickets, hooted at the jokes, and opened their wallets when the baskets were passed. $17,369 came in the night of the show, on top of $140,945 in sponsorship and ticket revenues. All three numbers are up significantly from last year.

If you were unable to join us, there's still time to add your name as a MinnRoast 2014 donor. Make a donation here by Friday, May 2, and put MinnRoast in the comments box. All MinnRoast proceeds support the year-round independent journalism provided by MinnPost. 

Thanks to returning cast member Amy Koch, who took the selfie published above at the start of her Stage Right remarks.

I recently wrote in this space about the staggering growth of digital advertising. Internet and mobile advertising has grown, on average, 18 percent every year since 2005. In that time, ad spending on the Web has more than quadrupled.

In 2013, for the first time, marketers spent more on digital advertising ($42.8 billion) than on broadcast TV ($40.1 billion). Print advertising at newspapers tumbled to $17.3 billion, a drop of 8.6 percent from the previous year.

Although print ads still provide the majority of newspaper revenue, owners seem powerless to stem the decline, which has continued unabated since newspaper ads hit their all-time peak in 2005.

Newspaper publishers are counting on the growth of their own digital offerings to remain relevant as an advertising medium — but so far, the results don’t offer a lot of hope. Alan Mutter, an industry analyst, points out that digital advertising at newspapers grew only 1.5 percent in 2013– while digital ads in general grew 17 percent.

But wait — there’s more. Newspapers are losing market share in digital ads, an even more frightening prospect. In 2003, when the Internet was still a relatively new advertising medium, newspapers claimed 14 percent of all digital ad revenue. Today, with the Internet and mobile as the primary places for marketers to reach customers, newspapers are claiming 8 percent of the market — roughly half of the share they held a decade ago.

In other words, even with a much larger pie to carve up, marketers are assigning newspapers a proportionately smaller piece of their ad budgets.

Newspapers have had some success with charging for articles on their websites. Most offer a limited number of free articles — typically 10 to 20 a month. After that, readers must pay. Or readers may pay for a digital subscription that allows them unlimited access.

The New York Times has had success with this model, but it may be reaching the point of saturation. The Times has sold 800,000 digital subscriptions since it introduced the service in 2011, but it added only 39,000 new digital payers in the most recent quarter. The universe of people who will pay a monthly fee to read the Times online is finite, and it may be reaching its limit.

The Star Tribune is a bright light in the murk that is the newspaper business. Published reports related to the paper’s pending sale to Glen Taylor estimate that the Strib turned a profit of about $30 million on revenues of $175 million last year. That’s an impressive showing in today’s news business. But in 2005, the paper brought in $380 million and showed a profit in the $90-100 million range. Today’s profitable Star Tribune is a much smaller — and less profitable — enterprise than it was a decade ago.

Print ads are never again going to bring in the river of dollars that flowed into newspaper accounts in the post-World War II era. If the news organizations that we now call “newspapers” are to survive, they must become places where advertisers credibly believe they can reach consumers with digital marketing content.

Brian Bonner left the St. Paul Pioneer Press for good in 2007, eventually returning to the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, where he was quickly reappointed chief editor of the small, independent paper. A classic, tough, gumshoe reporter for 24 years in St. Paul, Bonner is currently leading his staff through first-person, ground-level coverage of arguably the most dangerous international face-off since the end of the Cold War.

Via e-mail, we sought Bonner’s unfiltered views of the current situation.

MinnPost: Is there any verifiable consensus on what the majority of the population — across the entire country — wants, in terms of enhanced association with Europe, or a restored alliance with Russia? I read a lot about the disgust with rampant institutional corruption, but in a rational world wouldn’t that argue against any kind of closer ties with Russia?

Brian Bonner: Most polls, including in Crimea before the invasion, show no majority support for seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia. It registered the highest in Crimea, with 41 percent before the invasion, so it was Putin's strongest target. Here's a recent one.

Yes, Russia is probably even more corrupt than Ukraine's former government, so there's no upside to joining Russia. Putin is fueling the discontent eastern Ukrainians have with the central government in Kyiv and their poor standard of living; but for most Ukrainians, the solution is a European Union-style of democracy, not a return to Putin's neo-Soviet state.

MP: There is a belief here in the States that the appeal in Crimea of restored bonds with Russia had at least as much to do with the promise of increased pension payments as any deep love of the Motherland. What is your sense of the root of the “passion” for Russia, at least in the east and in Crimea?

BB: In eastern Ukraine, I think the passion is higher for a better standard of living than any return to Russia. I think those in Crimea who thought joining Russia is the answer are already having second thoughts. They will have even more when they see what a wreck the Russian economy is for most people, and they'll soon find out they have no freedom of information, speech or any ability to change or control their government or hold anybody accountable — Putinland.

MP: The coming elections seem to be boiling down to a choice between chocolate oligarch/TV station owner Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. I read that Poroshenko is regarded as the favorite. Why? Who is regarded as most credible by the protest organizers? How much electoral potency do they have?

BB: Petro Poroshenko is probably emerging as the favorite in the polls because he is lately seen as having taken a courageous, early stance during the EuroMaidan Revolution, long before victory was certain. His businesses — Roshen chocolate and others — paid the price in Russia, [which doesn’t] like his pro-European Union stance. However, Poroshenko has been on all political sides over the years, regrettably necessary to survive in Ukraine, but also something that fuels cynicism. People feel that Yulia Tymoshenko is part of the past, and it's unlikely she will rebound. But she has the best chance to defeat Poroshenko and she certainly earned credibility by taking on the former regime early and paying the price with 2.5 years in prison.

There are new faces in the presidential race, but none of them has a chance electorally. They either just are not known or they are not experienced politicians.

MP: Where do the latest facts point in terms of responsibility for the massacre by sniper fire on Institutska Street? Frankly, the Russian explanation seems preposterous. But several reports suggest that by killing both police and protesters the point was to ratchet up hysteria and violence and thereby “encourage” a Russian invasion to restore calm.

BB: The Russian explanation is preposterous. The sniper shootings mirrored what the overthrown Yanukovych regime said it was going to do — conduct anti-terrorist operations and authorize police to use lethal force. That's exactly what happened. On the most deadly morning, police retreated up the hill, causing the frontline of the protesters to take the bait and move forward, where they got mowed down by snipers.

It was cold-blooded. Police forces wore red reflective material so the snipers could identify them from everyone else when they directed fire. Numerous eyewitness and photographic evidence supports the case of government-sponsored violence. So do the preliminary results of the official investigation.

There were people killed on both sides, which gives urgency for a fast, convincing and complete investigation to kill the conspiracy theories, once and for all. That rarely happens in Ukraine, and actually may be a secondary reason for Putin's invasion — to put so much pressure on the current government that it cannot function and to hide Russian complicity in the crackdown. Putin was encouraging such a crackdown well before it happened, and publicly.

MP: Ukraine alone seems defenseless against further Russian aggression, and it’s very hard to imagine either the U.S. or NATO stepping up, even if the next move for Putin is to claim the eastern half of the country. Is there a realistic economic remedy the West can offer that might dispel the appeal of Russian annexation for those presently willing to accept it?

BB: Regrettably, the Ukrainian military has been starved, hollowed out and demoralized to the point where it could not withstand an all-out Russian invasion. But a military victory will not necessarily mean a political victory for Russia, they would be seen as an occupying force by most Ukrainians.

The West's response has been dismal. Probably because they are uncertain whether this government will stand and fight. At the least, the West could stop doing business with Russia, impose punishing economic and diplomatic sanctions. Instead, the London banks still do business with the Russian oligarchs, France is still thinking of selling warships to Russia, energy giants are still willing to do business, the U.S. even has a contract for $1 billion worth of Russian helicopters for Afghanistan. All in all, still far away from Iran-style sanctions.

As for significant economic aid, the Ukrainian government still has a lot of corruption to clean up before the West would be willing to invest much in Ukraine beyond the amounts needed to ensure its survival.

Note: Shortly after I first contacted Bonner, our former boss Ken Doctor filed this story with Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab.And yes, Bonner and his colleagues will gratefully accept contributions from MinnPost readers.  

More about Bonner from his official bio: Bonner has served as the chief editor of the Kyiv Post since 2008. He also held the job in 1999, three years after first arriving in Ukraine to teach journalism. Bonner is a veteran American journalist who spent most of his professional life with the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, where he covered international, national and local news during a nearly 24-year career in which he was a staff writer and an assigning editor. Bonner left the St. Paul newspaper in 2007 to become the associate director of international communications at the Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington, D.C. He also served as a political analyst with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe during six election observation missions in Ukraine, Belarus, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. To contact: email bribonner@gmail.com, Facebook at www.facebook.com/brianbonner, Twitter @BSBonner and Skype at brian.bonner1959.

WASHINGTON — Bipartisan bills from Reps. John Kline and Erik Paulsen are among those set to receive votes from the U.S. House in the next few weeks.

With Congress returning from a two-week recess on Monday, Majority Leader Eric Cantor sent a memo to members last week outlining the House's agenda for the rest of the spring.

Next week the House will vote on a bill from Kline, the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, meant to boost high-performing charter schools, and allow states to replicate their efforts, by combing two federal grant programs. Kline introduced the bill, the Success and Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Act, earlier this month with Rep. George Miller, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

Legislation from Paulsen is included in a suite of bills the House will consider in May to combat human trafficking. Paulsen's bill, the Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act, pushes states to develop safe harbor laws to protect and rehabilitate children who are trafficked. The House Judiciary Committee is set to mark up the bill this week.

Also on the agenda: three spending bills, tax legislation, health care measures and a vote to hold a former IRS official in contempt for refusing to testify to Congress.

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com.

In his 1941 State of the Union Address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rather famously enumerated what he called the “four essential human freedoms.” They were: freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom from fear and freedom from want.

On his PBS interview show, Bill Moyers recently interviewed University of Wisconsin historian Harvey Kaye, who’s out with a book “The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What made FDR and the greatest generation truly great.”

Thinking about the times in which we now live, what struck me was that fourth freedom — “freedom from want” — and that a great liberal lion like FDR, as recently as the 1940s, could not only declare a global crusade against “want” but could couch it as a fight for “freedom.”

It’s surprising to my 21st century ears because, in general, “freedom” and “liberty” have become buzzwords of the anti-government right — especially the Tea Party and “liberty” wings of the Republican Party. When freedom-talk occurs in those contexts, most often the subtext is about freedom from government taxes and regulations and mandates — so much so that the subliminal argument (and sometimes it’s more explicit than subliminal) is that everything a government might do is a subtraction from our liberty.

In the context of that rhetoric, the spectrum of possibilities runs not from freedom to tyranny, but from freedom to government, almost as if any action by “government”equals “tyranny.”

The idea that the leader of the U.S. government could — in 1941 — announce a plan to guarantee “freedom from want” sort of scrambles the whole picture. If I imagine a contemporary righty hearing such a proposal, it must seem like the opposite of freedom. Taken literally, it seemingly opens the door to an unlimited expansion of government spending and government programs as long as there is anyone still in a condition of “want.”

Of course, that’s taking things a bit too literally. Roosevelt — who had already signed into law Social Security, the first of the great entitlement programs — didn’t actually lay out a list of the programs, or the cost to the taxpayers, of a crusade to eliminate “want.”

But in today’s climate, the Republican “freedom” talk is likewise seldom linked to an actual list of the various government functions, programs and benefits that would have to be eliminated in order to restore to the taxpayers the “freedom” to hang onto their hard-earned dollars.

Photo by Elias Goldensky

President Franklin Roosevelt

Twasn’t always thus. Let’s take, for a moment, the separate cases of the two Koch brothers, the oil billionaires who have spent and raised (through the amazing “independent expenditures” gag) great googobs of money to spread the less-government-is-more-freedom gospel.

One of the brothers, David Koch, used to be an active member of the Libertarian Party. David Koch was actually nominated as the vice presidential candidate on the Libertarian ticket way back in 1980 (meaning he was opposing Ronald Reagan from the right).

Having Koch on the ticket gave the Libertarians a significant budget, which may have helped the party garner more than 1 percent of the total popular vote for the only time since the party started fielding a presidential ticket, 46 years ago.

One of the things I respect about the Libertarians is that they have a coherent philosophy and generally don’t run away from its implications. They believe that maximum liberty flows from minimal government and minimal taxes. Republicans often say similar things, but when put on the spot to specify the government functions and programs that would reduce or eliminate, they generally resort to ambiguity.

Not so the Libertarian Party.

What the Koch brothers want

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the only avowed “socialist” in the Senate, recently wrote and published on various lefty sites a  piece headlined “What Do the Koch Brothers Really Want?” He presumed that what the Koch Brothers really want is along the lines of the program on which David Koch ran in 1980. That year, the Libertarian Party platform advocated:

• An end to the individual and corporate income and capital gains taxes, leading eventually to “repeal of all taxation,” but with a possible interim step in which all criminal and civil penalties for tax evasion would be “terminated immediately;”

• The “abolition” of Medicare, Medicaid and (“the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive”) Social Security system, although with a possible interim step of making participation in Social Security voluntary;

• Abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Postal Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission…

• A “complete privatization” of public roads and highways, also complete privatization of all schools and repeal of compulsory education laws and all minimum wage laws;

• An “end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children;”

• Opposition to “all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs,” which the party declared to be “privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient.”

Well, you get the idea. The full Ayn Rand vision.

I don’t know if it’s fair to assume that what the Koch brothers “really want” can be literally taken from that platform. But I do know that since those days the Kochs, like many Republicans, have figured out that people like to talk of more freedom, less government, lower deficits, lower taxes and more individual liberty, but that it is much less clear that people like the specific budget cuts and program eliminations.

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

David Koch was nominated as the vice presidential candidate on the Libertarian ticket in 1980.

In more recent cycles, the Kochs have given their support to Republicans. The ideological center of that great party has moved to the right in the sense of portraying government as intrusive, excessive, socialistic and liberty-destroying. But — unlike the Libertarians — Republicans generally avoid specifying the litany of programs they wish to disestablish.

The elder Koch brother, Charles G. Koch, followed that practice in an op-ed piece he recently wrote for the Wall Street Journal that illustrated the politically shrewd way to wrap oneself in the language of liberty and freedom, and to define government as the antithesis of freedom but without specifying any of the benefits that some people might receive from government intervention. Wrote the other Mr. Koch:

Instead of fostering a system that enables people to help themselves, America is now saddled with a system that destroys value, raises costs, hinders innovation and relegates millions of citizens to a life of poverty, dependency and hopelessness. This is what happens when elected officials believe that people's lives are better run by politicians and regulators than by the people themselves. Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty, and liberty is the essence of what it means to be American. Love of liberty is the American ideal.

And

The central belief and fatal conceit of the current administration is that you are incapable of running your own life, but those in power are capable of running it for you. This is the essence of big government and collectivism.

These are interesting, if familiar assertions, and the use of “collectivism” is a nice touch, avoiding the inflammatory words “socialism” and “communism” but eliciting the same reaction. Still, in keeping with the current practice of calling for less government in general, Charles Koch’s essay does not specify any of the elements of the current fabric of what liberals like to call the “safety net” that would have to be abolished in order for us to get our liberty back. The really big and generally most beloved — Social Security and Medicare — and the one that is most sacred to the right — military spending — would presumably have to be sacrificed or shrunken. But, unlike the 1980 Libertarian platform, Koch does not say so.

'Freedom and liberty'

I called Harvey Kaye, who wrote the “Four Freedoms” book, to ask about my impression that “freedom and liberty” language has moved from the left in FDR’s day to the right today.

“Liberty,” he said, has been a magic word in America since at least the time of the revolution. It “trumps democracy,” he said. Advocates of causes in all periods and across the spectrum have fought to associate themselves with it. Slaveholders defended their peculiar institution on “liberty” grounds, he said, arguing that their property rights, including the right to own slaves, was a fundamental American freedom, Kaye said.

“There’s a solid argument to be made that the most valued and contested idea in U.S. history is the idea of freedom,” said. Those who want to transform America inevitably argue that whatever it is they are advocating would liberate us. And you could argue that when political power passes from one group to another, it passes because the group that wins the argument has associated its ideas with freedom and liberty in a way that convinces others who are outside their core group.

Kaye agreed with my premise, that in the most recent period the right has been more aggressive and successful at justifying its policy preferences on freedom grounds. But FDR demonstrated in his day that even a leader who seeks to increase the power and reach of the government and use it to redistribute wealth can do so with freedom talk.

In fact, Kaye mentioned that FDR had asserted the fundamental freedom argument for progressive policies when he said that “Necessitous men are not free men.”

I must confess, I didn’t know the quote, nor had I ever heard the word “necessitous.” Turns out, FDR borrowed the quote, including the word, from an 18th century British court ruling.

FDR dusted off the quote in his 1944 State of the Union Address in which he enunciated a “Second Bill of Rights.” He translated the quote to mean that “People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made” because they are so needy they will sacrifice their freedom.

FDR's 'second Bill of Rights'

Speaking as World War II was coming to a successful close and his own life was also nearing its end, speaking as the worst period in U.S. economic history was ending and the best was beginning, Roosevelt told the Congress and a national listening audience:

• These economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

• The right of every family to a decent home;

• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

• The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

Effective Democracy is a year-long series of occasional reports supported by the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, as part of a grant made to MinnPost and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

African Americans in Minneapolis with family members in prison had an opportunity last week to express their anger and frustration over expensive phone charges that make it difficult for them to stay in touch with their loved ones behind bars.

Officials from the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) were invited Thursday to New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in north Minneapolis to answer questions about prison phone regulations as well as payment for court-ordered restitution and fines.

The Rev. Jerry McAfee, church pastor and forum moderator, asked the officials: “Why are the phone rates so expensive, and who benefits from that money?”

Terry Carlson, deputy commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC), explained two offender calling options: 25 cents a minute for collect calls and 21 cents a minute for debit calls, a recent ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that took effect last February.

Before the recent ruling, the cost of a 15-minute debit call to another state was $4.80, and $17.30 for the collect option.

Compared with the previous rate, Carlson said, “We’ve a very low debit call rate — that’s when the offender pays for the call by buying phone time through the prison system.”

Carlson defended the phone system and said that the cost generated from telephone calls comes back to pay prison bills:  

The money that’s generated from collect calls and the debit calls is used to cover the costs of the phone service that we have, and also it pays for our phone monitoring systems and other security of the system. When those costs are paid for, and if there is still money to use for other purposes, the money has to be used for the benefit of the offender population. And some facilities are able to use that money to pay for that basic television that offenders have available to them. Also it can cover costs for the library and some recreational equipment. Again, it has to be for the benefit of all the offenders.

The DOC contracts with Global Tel Link, a private company that provides telecommunications services to correctional departments throughout the country. The current contract is in effect until March 2015.

Restitution fee complaints

Some felons receive money from families and friends as they do their time. Some use the money to buy phone services, others use it for restitution fees they owe to victims.

Sixty-three percent of inmates have court-ordered fines and restitution, Carlson said.  Since 1999, the DOC has collected a 10 percent service fee on those moneys received. “The money that’s generated from that cost of confinement fee is used to pay for our library services, laundry service, the offenders’ mattresses, inmate clothing,” Carlson said.

But since April 2013, inmates who owe court-ordered restitution and fines have seen another 10 percent cut in the money sent by outside sources.

She explained:

About $36 million in court-ordered fines and restitutions has been assessed against those incarcerated in our prisons. One of the things that we have an offender do while incarcerated with us is save money ... [for] when they get out of prison. And there is a minimum of $100 that they have to save. But for offenders who have been in for a longer period of time, we’re obligating them to save $500. When they get out, they have at least something in their pocket to make it into the world. So once the offender has saved that gate money, we reduce the amount collected from their wages.

The average court-ordered restitution amount is about $800, Carlson said. Before DOC implemented the new process for restitution collection, $12,851 was gathered for court-ordered fines and restitutions. One year after the implementation, the department collected $62,553 of court-ordered restitutions and fines.

MinnPost file photo by Beth Hawkins

Rev. Jerry McAfee

“That speaks volumes to our commitment to victims,” Carlson said. “And we really have not had a lot of complaints from the offenders. A lot of them said, ‘I know I had that hanging over my head, and I’m glad to get it taken care of.’”

McAfee, who is also the president of the Minneapolis NAACP, said the restitution fee, a department issued policy, is unfair to family members assisting their inmates.

“All of us, I’m sure, are sensitive to victims,” he said. “But it seems like those of us who are on the outside giving money to our loved ones to help them, we’re paying the victim and we had nothing to do with it.”

‘Slave ships run aground’

Sharon Brooks, president of Peace of Hope, and organization that helps prisoners' families, asked DOC Commissioner Tom Roy about what contributes to disparities in the state’s justice system.

While minorities make up 13 percent of the Minnesota population, they represent 50 percent of the approximately 9,760 adult offenders today.

Roy told the crowd that longstanding racism, and education and employment disparities, among other things, have contributed to the large minority population in Minnesota’s 10 prisons. 

“We’re the receptacles of historical and institutional racism,” he said. “I’ve likened our prisons to slave ships run aground — and that’s a sad comment for me, but it’s such a history in this country. Unfortunately the Correctional Department reflects a lot of failed systems.”

From the pick-up basketball player in the White House through the ranks of professional players, broadcasters, and armchair analysts, the reaction to racist comments allegedly made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been swift and sharp.

The state Campaign Finance and Disclosure Board has closed the book on charges of illegal activity by the DFL and Republican parties in 2012.  The verdict is — not guilty.

Each party had filed complaints against the other on independent expenditures that require outside groups supporting a candidate to report how much money they spent, and forbid any coordination with the candidate’s campaign.

The Republican party claimed that the DFL had coordinated with four candidates by staging photos of them that later appeared in DFL-paid literature.

The board ruled: “Where the DFL was unable to obtain the desired images, they obtained images at public events held by the candidates. In the cases of those candidates where images were obtained at public events, the candidate had no prior knowledge of the DFL’s planned attendance or that the pictures would ultimately be used for the subject independent expenditures.”

The DFL’s complaint alleged that the Republican Party, which had distributed similar literature on behalf of its candidates, had fudged reporting by not including the cost of mailing.

Here, the board determined that the Republican party had erred — “the report did not clearly indicate that the cost included postage” — but the omissions  “were inadvertent and were not done to avoid disclosure of the independent expenditures identified in the complaint.”

Tuesday is the primary to succeed Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman, whose district covers St. Louis Park, and southwest and downtown Minneapolis. (Polling place finder here.) If you haven't studied up, we've built the Last-Minute Candidate-Picking Tool_©.

Start with any of the 20 yes/no questions most important to you, and choose the next-most-important, until your candidate emerges — it won't take many questions. If you want to try a different path, just start over.

And if you're hungry for more, please read our candidate interviews and op-ed. Those stories are also linked under the candidate photos.

SPREMBERG, Germany — Surrounded by a flock of 250-odd black-faced sheep near this northeastern town, Frank Neumann jams his green Trilby hat on his head before a gust of wind sends it flying, then chuckles as his 120-lb sheepdog leaps up to lick his face.

The bearlike Pyrenean mountain dog is people-friendly, but it's no pet. Before the stocky farmer obtained six of them to protect his flock, he arrived one morning to find 27 of his cherished sheep eviscerated, their guts strewn across the pasture. It was a tough way to learn that the wolf had returned to Germany.

“Officially, there weren't supposed to be any here,” Neumann says. “I was pretty angry because no one had warned us.”

New sightings confirm that wolves are making a rapid comeback across Europe. 

But the most surprising success story — together with possible related problems — is here in Germany, which lacks the infrastructure for wildlife protection despite its strong tradition of environmentalism.

“Germany as a whole is becoming affected by wolves,” says World Wildlife Fund wolf expert Janosch Arnold. “Five years from now we’ll have them in nearly every district.”

Since the year 2000, when an infrared camera produced the first evidence of their return close to the Polish border, the number of wolf packs in Germany has mushroomed from two to more than 30.

Their comeback was initially attributed to the emptying of rural areas in what was formerly East Germany.

But with wolf packs settling amid wind-energy projects, along well-trodden nature trails and even on Berlin’s doorstep, it's now clear that the European Union's tough protection laws are responsible.

In a troubling development for some farmers, wolves are proving no more prone to remaining isolated in the wilderness than America's coyotes.

Wolves have killed some 350 farm animals across Germany during the past five years. Some farmers claim fear is stopping their sheep from breeding.

In recent weeks, wolves were indirectly blamed for a bloodbath on the Autobahn after a herd of frightened horses broke from their paddock and bolted onto the highway.

As in US states where wolves have made comebacks, such incidents have prompted calls from farmers and hunters for relaxing a ban on hunting the wild canines.

That's exposing a rift between the rural residents who must live with wolves and urban environmentalists who love them.

Conservationists are concerned that a serious lack of skills and funding would make the reinstatement of controlled hunting problematic.

Even in countries where wolves have always thrived, such as Finland and Norway, hunting licenses are often allotted with little understanding of population dynamics, critics say.

Germany has no agency that compares with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which has a budget of nearly $3 billion a year to implement laws like the Endangered Species Act.

Instead, the country's 16 states are left to conduct their own conservation policies. Research and monitoring is left mostly to poorly trained volunteers, says Ilka Reinhardt, one of Germany's rare wildlife biologists who helps run the wolf management bureau in Saxony, which has the Germany's largest population of wolves.

“In that regard, we’re like a developing country,” she says.

However, the real problem may be not the wolves themselves, but economics.

States compensate livestock owners for losses from attacks with various financial packages and incentives.

But farmers say compensation for slaughtered animals is always slow to arrive. And the funds cover only concrete items such as electric fences or sheepdogs, not the additional labor required for installation or training.

Compounding the problem, many sheep farmers make ends meet with the aid of European Union subsidies for the preservation of grassland ecosystems. They're essentially paid to graze their sheep, which means they must continually move from one pasture to another. The new threat of wolves requires them to also move their fences.

That's what bothers farmer Neumann, who despite the slaughter of his sheep remembers his lone sighting of a wolf as having filled him with exhilaration.

He's solved the problem of wolf attacks with his dogs and electric fences. But feeding his six huge flock-watchers costs him around $8,000 a year, a big chunk of the profits generated by 750 sheep.

“Many of us farmers here in Saxony are prepared to live with wolves,” he says. “But it's a huge financial burden.” 

Creative Commons/Scott Akerman

One of Minnesota’s longest-fought education reform campaigns appears to have quietly been resolved. So quietly, in fact, that the teachers and schools most directly impacted may not have realized as much.

It took more than four years, enough red tape to fill a U-Haul and the specter of numerous legal actions, but the state Board of Teaching has finally created a uniform, streamlined process for issuing licenses to teachers trained and licensed in other states.

Within a couple of weeks, teachers who have either been unable to accept a local job or who have been working under some kind of ad hoc credential will be able to submit the licensing applications that will get them out of limbo to the Minnesota Department of Education.

To the uninitiated, this probably doesn’t sound like a big deal. But to a growing number of teachers with unconventional training and track records of success elsewhere — not to mention the principals who want to hire them — it’s a watershed moment.

And a looming challenge: When the debate started, the board responsible for its implementation had the equivalent of 5.6 staff positions. Today it has two, and they have been warned that cuts may be coming, according to interim Director Erin Doan.

A labor-intensive process

Meanwhile, the newly approved process for reviewing applications from out-of-state candidates is relatively labor-intensive. The board’s staff has asked for additional funds. There is $100,000 in a House omnibus bill but no funding in its Senate equivalent, Doan said. 

The approval of the new licensing pathway comes more than three years after the Legislature passed a law — the first piece of legislation signed by then brand-new Gov. Mark Dayton, in fact — requiring the board to create the process by Aug. 1, 2011. At the time, Minnesota was one of nine states that lacked a “reciprocity” law.

But within days of the new law’s passage, the board posted a statement online discouraging applicants and cautioning that implementation “would take time.”

“Alternative programs completed outside of Minnesota will be reviewed and compared to alternative programs developed under the new law,” the statement reads. “Until programs are developed and approved alternative program completers from outside of Minnesota will be reviewed according to past practice. Individuals who have been licensed in another state via an alternative program should apply for a Minnesota license via the online application process.”

The problem: By definition, teachers trained in so-called alternative certification programs such as Teach for America (TFA) do not have teacher college transcripts. They are, however, typically recruited from the very top of their college classes and arrive here with evidence of strong student growth in their classrooms.

Jumping through hoops

Meanwhile, Minnesota has traditionally favored candidates trained in the state’s 33 teacher-training programs, which are approved by and represented on the board. Graduates’ basic skills tests passage rates vary widely.

The state has long had a reputation for making even experienced teachers with conventional academic credentials and licenses earned in other states jump through hoops, such as re-taking coursework or paying to student-teach again.

A year after the law was to be implemented, the state Education commissioner sent the board a strongly worded letter noting that the Legislature clearly intended Minnesota to smooth the licensing process for alternatively certified teachers.

At their monthly public meetings, however, board members continued to talk about the value of a conventional Minnesota education degree and to express skepticism about the need for alternatively prepared candidates.

Last June, at a meeting where a parallel process to grant limited licenses that allowed TFA recruits to begin teaching while still being trained, Sen. Terri Bonoff reminded the board that its job was to carry out state law, not second-guess it.

“If you don’t like the law, come back to us at the Legislature and ask us to change it,” she said. “This conversation is akin to the Republicans and Democrats arguing in the Legislature, where we pit one side against the other, with traditional teachers against alternatively prepared teachers.”

TFA alums press their cases 

In the end, some of the teachers in limbo threated to go to court. One of them was Kathryn Spotts, who received her full Minnesota license in August as part of the pilot of the process now set to roll out. She was first denied a license in 2010.

After majoring in history at Carleton College, Spotts trained with TFA, which placed her in a failing middle school in central Newark, N.J. While she taught, she took classes to qualify for New Jersey state certification. Her students posted test scores showing strong growth and Spotts was given the district’s coveted master teacher award her first year on the job.

After moving to Minnesota with her now-husband, Spotts applied for a Minnesota license, figuring she would be required to take a few classes. The board denied her request and suggested that she consider getting a master’s from the University of Minnesota.

(A sampling of her correspondence with state officials is illuminating.)

Instead, Spotts applied for a program that would have trained her in a specialty, but was denied because she was not a licensed Minnesota teacher. So she applied for a general education program, only to be told that a review of her Carlton transcript suggested she’d need a full year of prerequisites.

Spotts applied for jobs at two local charters and got an offer from each to teach under a temporary variance license. She took all of the state teacher skills tests and passed. Last year, Adelante College Prep, a Minneapolis middle school, had to do extensive paperwork proving that she was the candidate best qualified for the job.

The state generally frowns on issuing one variance after another, and so last year Spotts attended a series of meetings with attorneys from Faegre Baker Daniels, who were filing legal complaints with the aim of getting the board’s inaction before an administrative law judge.

Last summer, Spotts pushed the state to specify the qualifications she was missing. Instead of a firm answer, she got an e-mail asking her to participate in the pilot of a reciprocity process. Two weeks after submitting her materials, she was awarded a license.

Back to square one

Amara Lynch was prepared to press her case, too. Also a TFA alum, Lynch taught in Texas for four years and Georgia for one. After her last year teaching in Texas, 95 percent of her students passed state proficiency tests. She is bilingual, which makes her especially sought after.

Lynch followed her husband to Minnesota, where he now works as the director of teaching and learning for Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). When she first applied for a license, she was told she would have to re-do the coursework required of someone who had never taught.

“I’ve come across many amazing teachers who are in the same situation,” she said.

Lynch had signed up for graduate school when the pilot was announced in July. Like Spotts, she has no idea why she was subsequently given a license.

Legal complaints were prepared on behalf of a number of other teachers. In total, all but one of the 14 alternatively certified teachers who participated in the reciprocity pilot were ultimately licensed.

New point system

The new process gives applicants points for academic credentials and other qualifications. Those who score 45 or more points and meet basic requirements such as a college degree and passage of the state tests required administered to all teacher candidates will be granted licenses.

The list of potential qualifications was designed using categories the state used to use to identify highly qualified teachers, said Doan.

“At this point, we are trying to use the tools available to us to help teachers demonstrate how they meet the standards for licensure and to make sure everyone meets the same standards,” said Doan.

The online application process should be open by the board’s next monthly meeting, which takes place May 9. It’s not clear how many teachers are working in Minnesota schools on variances and waivers, but there is likely to be a push as those in limbo attempt to get full licenses for next fall.

(Full disclosure: Teach for America Co-CEO Matt Kramer is the son of MinnPost founders Joel and Laurie Kramer. Matt is married to TFA alum Katie Barrett Kramer. His brother Eli Kramer is married to Jessica Cordova Kramer, TFA’s senior managing director of alumni engagement. As the head of a network of schools that has hired a number of the teachers in question, Eli Kramer has testified before the State Board of Education on this issue. None of the Kramers mentioned here was involved in preparing this story. They will see it at the same time as MinnPost readers.)

The Republican Jewish Coalition of Minnesota is bringing in conservative commentator Bill Kristol tonight for a foreign policy speech to members.

Kristol is the editor and co-founder of The Weekly Standard, and a regular conservative guest on television news shows.

The speech, at the Minneapolis Hilton, is billed as "a critical look at the Obama Administration's foreign policy."

Registration starts at 6 p.m.; the program begins at 6:30 p.m.

The group says there is no charge for current RJC Leaders and Members, and $15 for RJC eTeam and non-current members. RSVPs are required: email Barbara Efraim at befraim@rjchq.org or call (202) 349-9586.

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As we rarely get a positive identification of the microbes that inflict us, making assumptions about our own levels of contagiousness is not such a good idea.

Microbiologist Jenny Rohn made some great points last week in an article in the Guardian about the “microbiological delusions” that people have about common infectious diseases, such as colds, flu and viral gastroenteritis.

By far, the most delusional of these beliefs is the one offered frequently by sneezing, coughing, runny-nosed people when they see others backing away from them: “Don’t worry. I’m not contagious.”

As Rohn points out, that may be true. But it also may not be true. And just because you think it’s true, doesn’t make it so.

Here’s why, writes Rohn (with British spellings):

Quite understandably, once our symptoms have peaked and we’re feeling a bit better, we may assume that the danger of spreading illness is past. But is it really that simple? It all depends on the particular microbe and strain. Rhinovirus, for example, one of the agents that causes the common cold, loads up your snot with so many particles that you can easily be infectious a full two days after your symptoms hit, and possibly longer. Other bugs have different windows of contagion, and even considering the same agent, strains can exist with more behavioural diversity.

As we rarely get a positive identification of the microbes that inflict us, making assumptions about our own levels of contagiousness is not such a good idea.

And then there’s that whole blaming thing — the infected person's belief that they know exactly who gave it to them (you, for instance).

Here’s Rohn on that touchy topic:

There are untold numbers of contagious microbe strains on the prowl, each with their own incredibly complex infection processes. Because of the variability of incubation periods and viral shedding windows (which can range for days), the most obvious culprit — your spouse, your child at nursery, the chap who sneezed all over you on the Victoria line — may be a red herring. …

On an average commute to work on London Underground, for example, you might come closer than you’d ideally like to hundreds of people in the carriages and tunnels and platforms; that handrail or escalator rail you are clutching could have been sweated on by thousands before you, many of whom have probably wiped their runny noses with a stray hand.

Unless you are confined at home with no regular visitors, pinpointing the exact moment of infection would be impossible; determining if your strain is the same as your work colleague’s would require complex sequencing procedures well beyond your pay grade.

Rohn also calls people to task for professing to know how long someone else’s cold or flu will last because, after all, they’ve just gotten over the same thing.

Once again, it may not be the same virus. And even if it is the same one, says Rohn, “differences in our own genetic backgrounds, overall constitutions and previous exposure-based immunities can make the course of the same disease quite different in two different individuals.”

So, the next time you (or someone you know) comes down with a nasty cold or flu bug, don't start making assumptions about who gave it to you or when you'll no longer be infectious.

But do try to keep those delusions — and your infection — to yourself.

You can read Rohn’s article on the Guardian’s website.