Education Policy Conversation — Northfield Alternative Learning Center
On Monday, March 1, at 10:00 a.m., 
Rep. Mindy Greiling 
and Rep. Connie Bernardy, both on the House Education Policy and Education Finance Committees, will come to the Alternative Learning Center to discuss education policy with interested Northfielders. They will tour the ALC and meet with people working in education and interested in education to learn what we think about the current direction of education in Minnesota and to let us know their legislative priorities this year.
In a recent article from the Duluth News Tribune it was reported:
The Legislative Auditor — an office that does evaluations at the Legislature’s request — used a simulation to project that even under the best academic scenarios, 80 percent of the schools would fall short if no changes are made to the law. The auditor predicted that all of Minneapolis and St. Paul schools will miss achievement goals. . . More than 80 percent of Minnesota’s elementary schools will be considered underperforming in the next decade under the guidelines of the federal No Child Left Behind law, according to an independent analysis.
It is also “quite possible” that the state will spend more money implementing that law than it will receive from the federal government, the state’s Legislative Auditor office concluded.
Pawlenty’s education commissioner, Cheri Pierson Yecke, attacked the report as one built on faulty assumptions, primarily that the law and funding levels will remain unchanged over the next 10 years. The law is due for reauthorization in 2008.
“The report paints a false perception,” Yecke said. “This perpetuates some myths.”
But critics of the law said it makes their case for distancing the state from the law. Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, said Minnesota can’t count on federal officials to make changes.
“It’s my opinion that their goal is to prove that schools are failing so we can go to vouchers that you and President Bush support,” Greiling told Yecke at a House committee hearing.
Tuesday is Precinct Caucus Night!
Feb 29, 2004 News
Also, mark your calendars, put up a note on your computer screen — Tuesday is caucus night!
Remember to attend your precinct caucuses, Tuesday, March 2nd at 7pm. The caucus is the first step in becoming involved in party politics on the state and federal level. You will have the opportunity to vote on your preference for a candidate in the Presidential race, and can become a delegate to the County and Senate District conventions. A delegate can advance to the district and state conventions and will have the chance to choose state house and congressional district candidates.
25b DFL voters in Precincts and Townships in Rice County will convene their 7pm caucus at the Northfield Middle School, except for those voters in Wheeling and Shieldsville Township, who will meet at the Faribault Sr. High.
Those 25b DFL voters in Scott County (Belle Plaine City, and Belle Plaine, Cedar Lake and Helena Townships) will convene at the Belle Plaine Sr. High. They will hold their county unit convention on March 6th at the Belle Plaine Pubic Library.
The Rice County Convention is scheduled for Saturday, March 20th at the Northfield Sr. High at 10:30 am. The Senate District 25 endorsing convention, both 25A and 25B, is scheduled for Tuesday, March 30th in Le Sueur. I will post more information about these events later in the month, but put it on the calendar today!.
Check the DFL website for more information.
Paul Gruchow May 23, 1947 – February 22, 2004
Feb 24, 2004 News
The wild geese fly over in the hundreds twice a year in western Minnesota and add to the strange haunting beauty of the prairie. I spent my first two years as a public school teacher in Milan, Minnesota, a railroad stop on the westward expansion. I remember those crisp fall mornings driving down the long driveway watching row after row of geese take off with the sound of my six cylinder wagon. I half expected the power of their wings to lift me into the air with them.
Milan is twenty miles from the birthplace of Paul Gruchow, who passed away Sunday in his Duluth home. Friends of the prairie, wilderness, land use and land stewardship lost a great voice with Paul’s passing. He and his family spent a brief time in Northfield. I remember when they moved to town, because the moving truck driver stopped at my house to ask directions and I took him to the soon to be Gruchow home across the street and down the block. I worked with his daughter Laura in a couple of plays. I was sad to see them leave town, their wit and intelligent discourse was a wonderful asset that meant so much to me.
Paul had a wonderful way of blending the curiosity of the writer and the awe of the naturalist to inspire and interest young people to describe what they see and feel. We often had brief conversations while he walked his black dogs past my house. He and Nancy talked openly about his struggle with depression and his struggle to hold on. There is something about his love of his environment, an appreciation for what is all around us and what it points to — a glowing transcendance that is present and yet which lies beyond what we see.
Startribune: ‘Empty Places’ author Paul Gruchow dead at 56
Paul was a thoughtful, caring person, in fact his friend, photographer Jim Brandenburg described him as an “intense man who cared very deeply about his art and the environment. I think he felt too much, knew too much and tried to express it too much. . . It was eating him alive. I could see it. He was trying to make sense of the world.”
Here are some of Gruchow’s observations:
“The same people in the Congress who are busy kicking holes in the social safety net are also those who would sell off the nation’s forests for a song, give away its national parks, and trash its wilderness preserves; there is a connection between the two impulses.”
(Boundary Waters)“To spend resources to produce food which you then threw out merely because you could not make a profit on it, that to him was waste, a kind of blasphemy.” (Grass Roots).
“Maybe 50 percent of farmers, some people tell me, will go out of business this time around. And it’s inconceivable to argue that those are farmers who just are not very good at what they do. This is a group of farmers who really are – who’ve survived. The average age of farmers is pretty old. They’re people who have survived all the previous crises, they’re pretty good, and they know what they’re doing. ” PAUL GRUCHOW
In an article titled ‘Son of the Soil,’ Kris Davis and Alexander M. Jacobs quote him saying:
“We still think that if you own the land you can do whatever you want with it. . . If we don’t treat the land with ethical restraint, we won’t survive in the long run.” His concern is not just pragmatic. Gruchow believed there is a God-given relationship between humans and the land that we need to recover, rediscover.
He said his father and farmers like him never abused the soil. That’s partly because farming techniques were far less sophisticated, he admits. But far more important, “They also understood that soil is where we come from. They never knew anything but a sacred respect for the land.”
In contrast, Gruchow said modern agriculture mistreats the soil. “It’s one thing, despite our cleverness, that we can’t make,” he points out. “Nobody has ever made an inch of fertile topsoil. We come from the land. It’s who we are. To have healthy land is to be well.”
from, “A Minnesota voice, depression’s din” bySarah T. Williams And Jon Tevlin, Star Tribune:
“Paul was a genius, one of America’s best essayists,” said St. Paul writer Carol Bly. “The rest of the country just hadn’t realized it yet. Had he lived long enough, they would have. . . A lot of people settle for a sense of place, but Paul always wanted people to feel more deeply than they were feeling.”
I will miss Paul’s voice as one that gave me hope for the future that could embrace a timelessness beyond the beauty of the past.
Corn is Not Eternal
Paul Gruchow
Excerpted from Grass Roots.
Snails Have Faces
Paul Gruchow
Excerpted from Grass Roots.
The Summit
Paul Gruchow
Excerpted from The Necessity of Empty Places.
Heron rookeries are raucous places.
By Paul Gruchow
What the Prairie Teaches Us
Paul Gruchow
Excerpted from Grass Roots.
In memoriam: A memorial reading with Carol Bly, Bill Holm, Jan Zita Grover and Emilie Buchwald, 7 p.m. Friday at Open Book, 1011 Washington Av. S., Minneapolis.
MAAP Conference — Feb. 18 – 20, 2004
Have you ever wondered what schools would look like if we started over and designed them without thinking about Thorndike, Skinner, industrialization, and the assembly line? what would schools look like if we could structure them with consideration for variation in student learning and individualizing programs and how the brain worked and students learn?
This past Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I attended the Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs annual conference. On Friday, we heard 
Joe Graba, former teacher, legislator and Senior Policy Fellow at Hamline University, talk about his efforts to encourage policy makers to make room for schools that work for students, as opposed to forcing students to fit into a system that may not work for them.
Thursday, two keynote speakers, Kimberly Marciniak and Wayne Jennings, inspired us to think about the direction that NCLB is taking us, and the educational future we should be pursuing. 
Kimberly Marciniak is a high school student from Texas who is boycotting the state tests as part of a moral position she has taken to point out the unfairness and wrong-headedness of the tests. She told a heartfelt and inspiring story of her courage and resolve to take a stand for something she believed in. The other keynote speaker, 
Wayne Jennings, founder of Designs for Learning is one of the early pioneers of progressive education in Minnesota and has a national reputation as someone working for and developing school reform that works. He is the chair of the board of directors of the International Association for Learning Alternatives (IALA),
an association I helped form in 2000.
The MAAP conference has consistently been one of the state’s best education conferences over the past twenty years, offering an array of presentations by alternative educators and Minnesota Dept. of Ed. specialists. This year, I gave four presentations, one was a panel discussion on IALA and how we define alternative education, another on the importance of identifying core values and operating assumptions in developing and maintaining high quality programs. I also conducted an education legislative issues discussion and my fourth was a group participation discussion on the uses of poetry in life and the classroom. All of the presentations were very well attended by an enthusiastic audience.
This year’s award for ‘Exemplary Contributions to Alternative Education’ was presented to Don Glines, the founder of the Mankato Wilson School, one of the country’s most innovative K-12 schools. Don has been active in school reform most of his adult life. He’s authored several books on the subject and is an honory member of he IALA Board.
Many of the Alternative educators at the conference expressed concern about the effect of NCLB legislation and the rigid rules and standards that it mandates that limit innovation and, for us specifically, the ability of teachers in alternative programs to create learning experiences that meet the needs of students. Alternative education has a different purpose and fulfills different needs than traditional education, and the NCLB does not recognize these differences or provide a distinct means of evaluating these schools, and under NCLB criteria, alternative education cannot ever “measure up.” We focused much of the discussion about efforts to develop alternate methods of assessment and data gathering (you can find most of this information online in the most recent MAAP newsletter) that reflect the success of our programs and that show the importance of supporting an array of choices to meet the diverse needs of our students. MAAP’s newly elected President, 
Terry Lydell is an expert on this, and is helping many programs develop methods of data gathering and producing an ‘Annual Report,’ which helps them communicate to others how they are doing.
Next year the conference moves to Duluth Entertainment Civic Center (DECC), Feb. 9th through the 11th, 2005.
FBI special agent Coleen Rowley on the Patriot Act
Feb 18, 2004 News
Sunday afternoon in Wabasha, The River Cities Alliance for Peace invited FBI special agent 
Coleen Rowley to speak about the Patriot Act at the Wabasha Mittel Schole. She focused her comments on a paper she had written last May, seeking “a better balance between our protection from further acts of terroroism and our Constitutional rights to privacy.”
She has, due to her background, a narrow legal approach to these issues, about which my legal counsel had a lot of comments and concerns for the way this plays out. Rowley has a lot of practical experience from her career as an FBI agent and trainer on constitutional issues, and was well versed in the protections observed by the FBI and the limitations of the Patriot Act, and although no fan of the Patriot Act, she acknowledges that some opposed to it have made exaggerated claims about its provisions and some promoting it gloss over some of the broad powers conferred.
One important part of the Patriot Act that Ms. Rowley stressed was that of the definition of “Domestic Terrorism,” which is, paraphrased and set out in clauses:
Acts dangerous to human life
in violation of state and federal laws
that appear to be intended to influence government.
She believes that the final clause, particularly the “appear to be intended” phrase, would be interpreted very broadly, so she doesn’t address it. The second clause is generally self-evident, and it is the first clause that contains the primary limiting factor in the application of the Patriot Act — that it must be an act “dangerous to human life.” Rowley also made an argument for adding “economic damage” to this definition, because much of the impact of domestic terrorism is economic damage.
The protections offered are primarily evidentiary, that if the limitations on the government’s power are not heeded, evidence gathered illegally cannot be used at trial. The problem with this is that there is little other motivation not to push those limits. As Rowley noted, the ratio of investigations to actual prosecutions is high, and few are prosecuted. That makes me wonder, because when that investigation happens, it is intrusive and a person is inconvenienced or their life is forever altered or somewhere in between, there is little that can be done to undo that damage. Imagine you are arrested illegally and detained, as so many have been since September 11, what is your recourse? If the government doesn’t stop at reading just your “to” and “from” lines of your email, and reads the content and uses it, just because it cannot be used as evidence does not mean that use by the government will have no impact on you. Should there be compensatory and punitive actions for illegal searches, detention, investigations that could keep the government in check? If government tramples over citizens in an investigation, there isn’t much a person can do.
This is an area I don’t know much about, and I’m glad to have had this look into the mechanics of investigations and the powers of law enforcement.
Rowley had three books to recommend:
“War of Numbers” by Sam Adams
“War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning” by Chris Hedges
“The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead” by David Callahan
Coleen Rowley’s Memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller
New York Times May 25, 2002
Critic Is Described as Scrupulous and Determined
By Jim Yardley
Colleen Rowley Letter to FBI Director
Letter | Minneapolis Star Tribune
Published March 6, 2003
The FBI’s high-stakes makeover
Bureau will put 500 agents on counterterrorism and have ‘super squads’ at HQ. Critics call for deeper changes.
FBI agent says bureaucracy hurt war on terrorism
Last Updated Fri, 07 Jun 2002 11:26:55
FBI WISTLE-BLOWER COLLEEN ROWLEY
Nobody knew anything about Ms. Rowley when her remarkably angry letter to her boss, FBI Director Robert Mueller, became public a few weeks ago. This week, she appeared on live TV, testifying about her charges before a congressional committee. The in-house counsel for the Minneapolis FBI office, who accused her own agency of both blowing its best chance to stop 9/11 and then trying to cover up its failure seemed truly Minnesotan: polite, cheerful, plainly dressed and utterly merciless. As to how she came to write the single-most damning document produced within the FBI since J. Edgar Hoover, she credited her typing class in high school.
TODAY: interminable screediness about The Whistleblower & Free Speach.
LILEKS HAS A MAJOR BURR UNDER HIS SADDLE AND IS WIELDING THE CLUEBAT WITH HIS USUAL PRECISION:
CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
Bill Moyers – NOW – on Patriot act
Charter Schools and Public Schools – Proper Funding is Essential for Success
Representative Cox blogged about a recent Star Tribune article that mentions Northfield’s three Charter Schools, which raised the positive aspects of Charter schools and also concerns that traditional educators have about them. This is especially important in the present mood to under-fund traditional education and the difficulty public schools face, given lack of funding, in their efforts to present a full array of ‘choices’ for students.
StarTribune: School leaders have mixed feelings about adding charter schools
In Minneapolis, dramatic and sudden changes are proposed, in part to recapture the interest of parents and students going elsewhere for education:
Interim Supt. Jennings said he is also trying to change programs to make public schools more attractive to parents who are choosing to send their children to charter schools or suburban schools.
StarTribune: Minneapolis May Close 10 Schools
It’s happening in St. Paul too:
StarTribune: St. Paul Ponders Closing Wilson Junior High This Fall
The other $4 million in program trims is due to district revenues — primarily from the state — not keeping pace with expenses, said Lois Rockney, the district’s director of budget and finance.
I found some of Rep. Cox’s comments disturbing, especially considering the efforts he has made in his blog and in public presentations to convince teachers, school administrators, and school board members that he is on their side and believes that schools need more funding. He says:
Some people, including many in the Legislature, don’t like charter schools. Those same people are the ones that support “business as usual” for most school issues. Our traditional school system is a good one, but I do think it needs to be encouraged to look at new directions and ideas. Charters will help do that.I hope everyone always remembers that the purpose of our education system is to provide students with the best educational system and opportunities possible within reasonable funding limits. The goal isn’t to employ the most people. . .
What a statement! Who would believe that is what traditional schools try to do? Does he think that traditional schools waste tax payer money on excessive employment? What is he saying?
As an alternative educator, I support charter schools and the choices they offer students, but I don’t agree with the Republican philosophy of ‘improving things’ through competition in a climate of scarcity. All you do is create winners and losers, not ‘improvement.’
Rep. Cox recognizes the necessity of having enough money to do the job, that ‘proper funding’ creates winners:
If the charter school idea is a good one and has student and parent support, with proper state funding support, it should be successful.
That proper funding creates winners also means that ‘proper funding’ of the public schools would create winners, and that improper funding creates losers. That doesn’t seem to bother Rep. Cox as he supports ‘freedom to fail’:
In America, we allow individuals and businesses to be as successful as possible, and also to fail at will. I think schools need to look at some of that same modeling. Charter schools do that. If the charter school idea is a good one and has student and parent support, with proper state funding support, it should be successful. The converse applies also…if the charter plan is not a good one, then it should be allowed to close.
Does he think only Charter Schools deserve ‘proper funding?’ What do his votes reveal about his beliefs about funding the public schools?
Jennings’ proposal to the Minneapolis School Board plainly and unequivocally states that the school system is not adequately funded:
Inadequate federal and state funding makes a difficult situation worse.The district’s general fund has always filled the gap that exists between the referendum funds and the actual costs of paying for small class sizes. However, years of inadequate funding from the state and federal government for mandated services, leaves insufficient general fund dollars to supplement the cost of reduced class size.
The so-called ‘lower class size’ that the Minneapolis Public Schools are trying to maintain is the ‘current levels of:
K-3 = 22 students; 4-8 = 28 students; 9-12 = 30 students (average).’
Inadequate funding is not only a problem in Minneapolis; it is a problem in Northfield. Rep. Ray Cox recently shared the results of a House Republican Caucus he had distributed to the teachers in Northfield’s public schools, to the school board with his summary. He asked what teachers felt their biggest obstacle or challenge in the classroom was. The primary obstacle or challenge identified by the highest number of teachers was the ‘lack of resources and materials.’ 34% of the teachers in Northfield surveyed reported this to be a problem. And for some reason, Rep. Cox did not mention this answer, either in his written report or in his oral presentation to the Board.
He did mention the next highest response, 22% (students not following through on home work), which he combined with the 19% of teachers who felt that lack of parent involvement was a sign of the importance of family life to student performance. But no mention of the primary concern of teachers – that 34% have a difficult time doing their job due to lack of resources and materials — inadequate funding. If we think about how to reach those students whose families struggle it is difficult to intervene without spending more funds.
When Rep. Ray Cox supports ‘proper state funding support’ for charter schools, does he also support ‘proper state funding’ for traditional public schools?
When Rep. Ray Cox says:
In America, we allow individuals and businesses to be as successful as possible, and also to fail at will. I think schools need to look at some of that same modeling. Charter schools do that. If the charter school idea is a good one and has student and parent support, with proper state funding support, it should be successful. The converse applies also…if the charter plan is not a good one, then it should be allowed to close.
Does he also mean that he will assure proper state funding support for the public schools so that they can be successful? Let’s look at his votes and find out.
Rep. Ray Cox did not author or coauthor a single bill to “assure proper state funding support” for the public schools.
I would put adequate funding of public schools as my highest legislative priority. There is no excuse for the recent and predicted funding cuts to the school districts that have already ‘trimmed the fat’ and which are now forced to surgically remove their vital organs. How many levy referendums were held last November to replace the state funding now that responsibility has been transferred from the state to local governments? How many succeeded? How many failed? How many school districts will be successful? How many will fail? How many can now afford to offer ‘choices’ that parents and students want if they are struggling to maintain merely basic services? Where ‘proper state funding’ is, as Rep. Cox notes, a key element to a successful educational program, it looks like the state has instituted planned failure for the public school system.
How do charter schools fit into the mix? The StarTribune article goes on to quote Ben Kanninen, superintendent of the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school district.
“The more you create or expand on charters, the harder it is for them to find their market niche,” Kanninen is concerned that there might be a limit to the needs that charters could serve. If the state or other sponsors are not careful in approving schools, their failure could have widespread effects. “That lack of success is paid for by the students, both in the regular system and those within the charter school,” he said.
Ray may not be aware of the effects of charter school failure on students and staff. As a teacher, I have dealt first hand with students who were displaced by the closing of PEAKS Charter School in Dundas, and I know how difficult it can be for students after their schools fail. Failure of a venture of this kind is devastating, even in the world of business or the “little free-market guy” Ray describes himself, as it is devastating to see your dreams fail.
All this makes me wonder how much of an advocate Rep. Cox can be for public schools. I will be curious to see what he does to increase school funding for quality public education, what he will do to help schools be successful. Will he fight against his Governor and his party to increase education expenditures when the Republicans are forcing the cuts? The Governor’s so-called ‘new ideas’ will do nothing to help fund schools. They are tricks and gimmicks meant to distract voters from the real problems schools face – they do not address the primary problem of lack of funding.
I believe in the public school system and would work hard to assure the state provides funding to the schools so that they can succeed, and funding for the students in our schools so that they can succeed. The public schools should be supported by the state, not rely on the districts and local governments with their vastly varying resources. Equitable funding of our schools is my highest legislative priority.
Why I am running
I am running for the House of Representatives for District 25B, the seat currently held by Ray Cox. In the last election, he won by 20 votes, 44 in the recount, and that close vote is hardly a mandate. In this election, I will work for a decisive win that shows the commitment of this District to make Minnesota better. I am running for the state legislature because I want the Minnesota I’ve grown up with, with the promise and opportunities this state has offered to me, to be available for our children and grandchildren.
As we look to the future and a vision of what can be, we must look, as the early settlers of our great state did, beyond the here and now to the generations to come. If sacrifice is called for, as it is now, it should be spread equally so that it is bearable, and not foisted on one group or another. Instead, we are witnessing, both on the federal and state level, a dismantling of the social safety net that benefited the poor and the middle class at a time when that safety net is more important that it has been for sometime. Over the last thirty years, I have been drawn to work with those young people whom others had given up on, because I believe that while on the grand scale the answers to the world’s problems seem insurmountable, on the human level, person to person, we can, by seeing each other, find a future for us all. This means that we need to be challenged not only to overcome financial poverty, but we must overcome our own poverty of spirit that cripples us and pits us against each other.
I believe that I can make a difference to assure that the children who need a hand before they start school will get it, so that our schools can be the best they can be for everyone because children are ready to learn. To do that, we must invest in education and return control of those schools to local school boards. We must make sure that counties, cities and townships have what they need to provide the vital services to all citizens, that the care that senior citizens require will be provided, and that we all have the opportunity to prosper, not an invitation to fail. We must fight for a living wage and respect for all workers so that all can benefit from an invigorated economy. Tax cuts and the trimming or destruction of the safety net will only hurt us in the long run as it will push financial burdens on to our children and grandchildren. If we believe in a future that benefits all, we must move beyond a vision that only benefits a few.
Leadership requires setting an agenda founded on principles, being clear about where you are headed and what you intend to accomplish. This clarity about our mission, strategy and purpose is the first step to reaching our goals and sets up the criteria by which we will be judged and held accountable. That’s democracy, transparent actions based on citizen input, all in the public interest. I’m a different sort of leader, practicing not leadership of flash, smoke and mirrors, but substantive leadership, quietly determined step-by-step progress towards a goal, able to do the hard research to thoroughly understand the issues, and most importantly, bringing together those who may not see eye to eye or even have the same vision, to take a project to fruition in a collaborative process.
That’s also the kind of leadership that is the essence of the legislative process. This is why I’m running for office. I look forward to a lively campaign.
Wellstone Action
Feb 9, 2004 News
Last Thursday evening I attended the Wellstone Action meeting at 
River City Books to discuss former Senator Paul Wellstone’s book 
“The Conscience of a Liberal“. It was a sparsely attended meeting, but the discussion was vigorous. I was unfortunately late, having attended a meeting with folks from the DFL House Caucus about my campaign. I was a little surprised to see my counterpart, Rep. Ray Cox, at the meeting. As I entered the room, Tom Swift, the moderator, was talking about conditions of many workers today and cited the book ‘Nickled and Dimed‘ by 
Barbara Ehrenreich as a good explanation of how hard some people have to work to just barely make it. 
There was an effort to talk about Paul the man beyond the party partisan, perhaps to include Ray in the discussion, which lead to an expression of disappointment that the school board did not approve a request to name the new Middle School after Paul and Sheila Wellstone. There was some explanation offered about the process of naming a building, and Ray mentioned that as there was only one Middle School so that there is not a need to name it as there is with the multiple elementary schools.
Some asked what Wellstone Action hoped to accomplish, and if it was indeed nonpartisan. Tom indicated he believed it was nonpartisan. I added having been to a Wellstone training camp that that was my experience but that it seemed to be an effort to carry on the legacy that Wellstone began as a teacher. That legacy is offering his students hands-on experience in helping people become empowered through the political process and improving their lives for the better. Wellstone trained many students in this way who have gone to carry out this work. Much of it outlined in another book of his ‘How the Rural Poor Got Power‘ that is a case history of Organization for a Better Rice County. 
Patti Fritz, running for House District 26b is prominent in that book and a great example of living politics.
As the meeting closed the participants encouraged Tom to arrange for another meeting and have the topic be Health Care Reform.
In the meantime, there will be another meeting held by a different group on Monday night. Per Bill McGrath’s posting today, Betsy and Brian McMahon, PPG members who live in Faribault, are facilitating the discussion in the Buckham Memorial Library in downtown Faribault. It begins at 7 p.m.
Legislative Watchdogs
Feb 7, 2004 News
If you want to keep an eye on certain issues as they move through the legislative session there are some great tools out there. The Center of the American Experiment has developed a very easy to use website that provides readable brief descriptions of every bill, floor amendment, and roll call vote in the
Introduced to the Minnesota legislature, Senate and House. You can search by bill, legislator, or issue, and includes graphic display of vote tallies on some bills. The website, 
MINNESOTAVOTES.ORG should prove to be a useful tool to anyone wanting a quick look at what is happening. Questions can be addressed to the Director of MinnesotaVotes.org, Chris Tiedeman, at chris.tiedeman@amexp.org.
If you’re interested in the environment ME3′s Legislative Watch is the best energy related website around.
Here are two other sites by Joan Spiczka, a former township supervisor from Foley, MN. She includes her commentary and admits at times her partisan view comes through.
Legislative watchdog.
I like this quote from Lincoln she displays on her site:
The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all or cannot do so well, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. — Abraham Lincoln
Joan’s non-partisan site: Joan on Government.
Labor interests may want to check IAMA site. 
Here are a couple with a federal scope:
FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING (FAIR):
If you have some sites you look turn to keep an eye on government, let me know what they are, and I’ll add them to my list. We have to know what they’re doing to hold them accountable.
