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14 for '14: The most-read opinions

The following excerpts are from opinion articles ranked by highest online readership in 2014. To read them in their entirety, use the embedded links.

By Editorial Board

December 30, 2014 at 11:09PM

Star Tribune photo Illustration/ iStockphoto.com (David Banks/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

1. "Walk a mile in my teaching shoes," a commentary by Greta Callahan, a teacher in the Minneapolis public schools:

If you walked into my colorful, happy classroom, you'd see a wall of notes and pictures from my former and current students. Almost all are written on a piece of garbage or the back of a work sheet. Those pictures are drawn because my students love school. Students often enter our rooms jaded and defeated in August, and leave with a sense of confidence and hope for their future in June. But our achievement scores don't measure hope and confidence.

2. "Why days off due to extreme cold are not 'silly,' " a counterpoint by Janelle Holmvig, of Minneapolis, a licensed nurse:

It seems that some people are taking issue with all these "silly days off" from school because of the cold, including a recent letter writer who described them that way in noting that they give children the opportunity to fill the shopping centers. He must have had a vastly different experience than I have. I live in Minneapolis and work as a nurse for the Minneapolis public schools.

3. "Dance team: A sport that doesn't get the respect it deserves," a commentary by Michelle Rotter, booster secretary and Hype Committee chair of a metro-area dance team:

What if there were a women's sport that would challenge your daughter's strength, stamina, flexibility and balance, and build her self-confidence? Too good to be true? It's not. Dance team is a huge sport, though most people never think twice about it. The participants are sometimes thought of as "pageant girls," just there to entertain the crowds at halftime until the real sport of football comes back onto the field. Nothing could be further from the truth.

4. "Minnesota's small towns: A tour of a crisis in the making," a commentary by Jim Mulder, retired executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties:

When the Interstate 35W bridge fell, Minnesotans were moved to action. When a tornado hit north Minneapolis, and when floods destroyed parts of Moorhead, the state responded to rebuild those communities. But in 2014, Minnesota must come to terms with a crisis unfolding across much of the state that will not attract the attention of the news choppers. The crisis is gripping the vast majority of Minnesota's smallest cities and counties, which are slowly withering and dying on the vine.

5. "Minnesota Nice? It's like ice," a commentary by Jerilyn Veldof and Corey Bonnema, who are Twin Cities-based trainers and consultants who work at the University of Minnesota:

It's no secret: Minnesota is a terrific place to live. We have excellent schools, great health care, wonderful arts and amazing entertainment options. There's just one problem. As transplants to our state quickly learn, we also have something called "Minnesota Nice." To the locals, Minnesota Nice is truly nice. We wave our fellow drivers through four-way stops; we help dig our neighbors out of the snow even when the windchill is minus 40, and we tend to be exceedingly polite. It's all good, right? Not so fast. Talk to transplants from other states and countries and you get a different story.

6. "The 'State of Hockey' is … excessive," a commentary by hockey parent Dale Vaillancourt, who lives in Burnsville:

I respect the drive it takes to become a high-level player. As a competitive athlete my entire life — I just completed my 12th American Birkebeiner, and added to the list of more than 100 endurance marathons in various sports — I understand training and commitment at a very deep level. But at the youth levels, the "State of Hockey" is a really, really sick state indeed.

7. "Abolish inheritance, Mr. President. There is no other way," a commentary by John Guidry, a teacher who lives in Lino Lakes:

I have heard that President Obama will talk to the American people about income inequality and economic mobility this evening in his State of the Union address, but mark my words: Any plan that does not involve limiting or abolishing inheritance is no legitimate plan at all. The effectiveness of the president's proposals will be directly proportional to their ability to limit or stop all forms of inheritance.

8. "Why do teachers leave the toughest schools?," a counterpoint by Kirsten Ragatz, who lives in Minneapolis:

Teaching at any school is challenging. Teaching at a school where most of the children are living in poverty is challenging in a way that few people can begin to understand. Middle-class families worry about their children being ready for kindergarten, but when I began teaching, most of my kindergartners arrived at school almost completely unprepared.

9. "Rush Limbaugh may find the joke's on him," a column by Reg Henry of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Every father should tell his children the hard-won lessons he has learned about life. For example, never get into an argument with a clown. He will just get out of his tiny car, slap his outsized shoes on the sidewalk and honk his silly red nose. It is hard for a normal person to remain dignified in such a confrontation. Rush Limbaugh, a father figure to many in the conservative movement (heaven help us), has forgotten this wisdom.

10. "How being a good liberal made me a bad parent," a column by Darlena Cunha of the Washington Post:

I'm a die-hard, bleeding-heart liberal. And it's ruining my parenting. My intentions are good. I want my two daughters, 6, to think critically, to fight for fairness and justice whenever they can. I want them to value equality above all else. But sometimes, I also need them to do what I say. This contradiction is hard to explain.

11. "Antibullying bill raises troubling questions," a commentary by Katherine Kersten:

"Antibullying" legislation is a top priority for DFL leaders at the Capitol this year. In the last session, their bill got hung up in the Senate, and they appear determined to muscle it through this time around. Bullying is wrong. No child should have to put up with it. But a glance at the bill raises troubling questions.

12. "White privilege? Gag me," a column by Stu Bykofsky of the Philadelphia Daily News:

My "white privilege" was sharing a bedroom with my sister in a South Bronx tenement until I was 15 and she was 11. My parents slept on a bed in the living room. Then we moved out of a neighborhood of close scrapes and fire escapes to a Brooklyn public-housing project where we had our own bedrooms. My situation today may be better than my black Bronx classmates', but I don't know that for sure. The hill was, and is, steeper for blacks than whites, but to think all whites roller-skate downhill is ridiculous.

13. "Robbinsdale suspensions down, disruptions up," a commentary by Diane N. Pulling, a Robbinsdale teacher:

On the Robbinsdale Area School District's home page, Superintendent Aldo Sicoli recently posted an ode of praise to the dramatic fall in suspension rates for our school's youngsters. I, for one, think the drop in suspensions has come at a tremendous price for our classrooms and the youngsters we serve.

14. "My side of the Cedar-Riverside caucus dispute," a commentary by Ilhan Omar, a senior policy aide to Minneapolis City Council Member Andrew Johnson and DFL vice chair in District 60:

You may have read about me. I am the woman who was physically beaten at the DFL Party caucus in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis on Feb. 4. I am deeply saddened and horrified about what happened during the precinct caucus at the Brian Coyle Community Center that Tuesday night. The attack left me with a concussion and bruises, but it has left a far more terrible mark on my community and has undermined the democratic process as well.