Apr 5, 2008

Mayor it takes Real Leadership

First off, I like R.T. Rybak. He is one of the most approachable elected officials at any level I know. He is a genuinely nice guy, and I tend to like people that pursue and achieve their life long dreams. However, he is a guy that is wrong-minded when it comes to running a city. You still have a city that creates an oppressive tax burden on residents and businesses, continued crime problems, and an ever lowering of just about of the key city livability factors. He lacks the political skills to raise the city’s standing with the outstate political establishment, solve the business problems facing downtown, and tends to focus on “pie in the sky” initiatives that just cost a ton of non-existing city money.

Now there is talk about him running from Governor. Usually one would have a positive record to run on in order to make a case for running for higher office. Try solving some problems that take real leadership. How about taking the lead on real education reform? How about improving the business environment? How about making Minneapolis a more affordable place to live? That would be by real means, not artificially created ones.
What are your motives there R.T.? We could have been looking at R.T for US Senate right now. There as a lot of talk about that about a year or so ago. Now we are talking Governor, why? Show me the real leadership!!

Apr 4, 2008

Where is the Shadow #6



Last week: The Mnneapolis School Board building "807" Broadway NE

Apr 3, 2008

What is it that residents want...Don't care

The Park Board and the "Silly Council" often brag about their "listening" to the concerns of the people and being an "open" government. Well, here is a point that counters both. It sounds like they aren't being straight with the people, nor really accounting for their concerns.
Please check out http://www.savestinson.org/.
Stinson Parkway is in Northeast, and refers to one of our previous postings in regards to the connection of the missing link of the Grand Rounds.

Apr 2, 2008

Fixing Education #6 – Don’t ignore the problems and face the numbers

Holy cow was this timely (they must have know I was talking about this..ha ha).
The Minneapolis Star Tribune releases the story on graduation rates in the Minneapolis schools and the numbers aren’t shocking to those of us who pay attention, but still are very disturbing.

Sixth: the numbers don’t lie no matter which ones you believe
It doesn’t matter if you believe the “America’s Promise” graduation rate of 43.7% during 2003-2004, or the MPS numbers of 52.8% over that same period. This is a huge failure, which requires action of crisis proportion. Everyone connected with the Minneapolis Public Schools planning guidance should resign in complete disgrace due to their incompetence. Decisive leadership and action is required so that the parents can stop scarifying their children’s future to political bungling. It doesn’t matter even if you believe the 67.2% rate this past year, it’s still more than 1 in 3 students won’t graduate. In a company if you produced at these levels you would be fired. As each year goes by that this problem isn’t addressed properly you are throwing over 1/3 of the kids “under the bus”. There is no plan in place to deal with the outcome of this inaction, and no plans to fix the root causes of the problems. Over the last week we’ve highlighted the problems and proposed solutions. This is a lot better than the Minneapolis school board has done over the last few years.
Not just the school board problem.
The “Silly Council” and the Mayor are also to blame for allowing this problem to continue without getting addressed. Yes I know what you “elected” say…It’s not a city council issue. Hogwash!! One of the biggest livability factors in any city is the quality of the education system. Granted this isn’t just Minneapolis, but all big cities. They focus their time on making things green, worrying about their popularity with the voters based on the amount of money they handout, and banding certain types of music in coffee shops. You people wanted to provide leadership on the important issues of the day, then show some leadership on this important issue…..fix the schools.

Mar 31, 2008

Fixing Education #5 … we are not done yet

I’m going to continue this thread because it is one of the most trying subjects of our time, and besides, I’m not done ranting and raving yet.

Fifth: Make a pact with parents
Parents and teachers need to be on the same page as to the needs of the students. Parents and teachers should meet each at the beginning of the school year or period and lay the foundation for the rules of the classroom, expectations, develop a open line of communication with each other, and spend time together to give one another a good understanding of the other. This may seem like a lot considering the number of students a teacher will see in a year, but in order to improve the state of education it is necessary.
The book “School Programs and Teacher Practices of Parent Involvement in Inner-City Elementary and Middle Schools” by Joyce L. Epstein and Susan L. Dauber; points out the importance of building the parent, student, teacher relationship.
This is especially true in the middle school grades. The major factor in success at the middle school level is that the teachers are teaching middle school kids because they want to. I’ve seen the major difference in the quality of the education between public and private middle schools come down to this one single factor.

It's baseball season.....

And it feels so good!! Go Twins!!