Promoting learning

Last update: November 1, 2009 - 2:29 PM

PROMOTING LEARNING

Five honored for their work

The efforts of two Minnesota state senators and three citizen lobbyists to bring research-proven methods to the teaching of reading have won them national acclaim.

State Sens. Kathy Saltzman, DFL-Woodbury, and Gen Olson, R-Minnetrista, were recipients Monday of achievement awards bestowed by the National Association of Reading First, an advocacy group that supports the dissemination and implementation of newly developed methods of teaching children to read. Also honored were Susan Thomson of Orono, the founder of the Parent Advocacy Group; John Alexander, head of school at Groves Academy in St. Louis Park, and Bette Erickson, a Minneapolis teacher and parent advocate for learning disabled children.

Saltzman and Olson collaborated on legislation in 2009 that requires candidates for prekindergarten and elementary school teachers' licenses to demonstrate proficiency in comprehensive, science-based methods of reading instruction. That requirement, which will be imposed on new teachers beginning in 2012, was hailed as one of the strongest in the country to bring the findings of literacy research to bear on the classroom.

The two legislators said they in turn were responding to persistent, informed pleas from parents including Thomson and Erickson and educators including Alexander. They cited new teaching methods that produced evidence of dramatic improvement in reading proficiency among students who had been judged incapable of reading when exposed to traditional methods of instruction alone.

The vision the award winners outlined Monday was of a vanishing achievement gap, a lower dropout rate and a smaller share of young people imprisoned, all because more Minnesota children will learn to read. That gain can come with little additional cost to taxpayers, Olson added. If that vision comes true, national recognition will be richly deserved.

USE GOVERNMENT AS A TOOL

A call for engagement

The crowd alone was inspiring at Thursday night's annual meeting of the venerable Citizens League, Minnesota's 57-year-old nonpartisan collective of people seeking ways to advance the common good. The 93-year-old, 1,000-seat Pantages Theater was a good three-quarters full. League executive director Sean Kershaw said that made this year's gathering the largest for the organization since architectural lion Frank Lloyd Wright was the annual meeting's featured speaker at the Leamington Hotel in 1957.

More inspiration for citizens to do their part for a better society came from Nate Garvis, vice president for government affairs for Target Corp. A "civic entrepreneur," Garvis wants Minnesotans to get past thinking of government as a partisan battleground, and recognize it as one among many tools at citizens' disposal for minimizing society's persistent maladies.

Government is imperfect, as all tools are, he said. But combine government action with media messages, cultural norms, educational themes, voluntary group efforts and more, he said, and major change happens. Consider this country's race relations: "We went from 'I have a dream' to 'I have a black president''' in 45 years, Garvis noted.

The power of Internet-based social networks is only beginning to be brought to bear on public problem-solving, he said. He urged citizens to school themselves as "connoisseurs and curators" of some portion of the community's shared life, and then seek to influence others with that knowledge, using social networks and more. The notion that government alone is the custodian of American common good can and should give way to a sense of stewardship that is much more widely shared, he said.

LORI STURDEVANT

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