Minnesota Independent

Video: Sen. Hall on Minneapolis and integration funding

By Andy Birkey | 04.01.11 | 3:07 pm

The DFL has released a video of this week’s statement by Burnsville Republican Sen. Dan Hall on school integration. “I watched Minneapolis get destroyed, so I not only didn’t want my kids in the school system,” he said. “I took them out of Minneapolis because they ruined our neighborhoods with integration and [de]segregation.” Hall made his remarks during debate about a move by Minnesota Republicans to repeal school integration laws, specifically a decades-long program that aims to diversify schools in the Twin Cities metro area and Duluth.

GOP rejects anti-bullying measure

By Andy Birkey | 04.01.11 | 1:06 pm

As the Minnesota Senate debated a K-12 education budget bill on Thursday, Sen. Scott Dibble (DFL-Minneapolis) offered an amendment that would strengthen the state’s anti-bullying laws. The proposal would instruct school districts to set up trainings for staff — from teachers to bus drivers — on how to handle bullying. The bill was defeated on a party line vote, with Republicans voting against it.

The House wing of the U.S. Capitol. Photo: Jim Armstrong, Flickr

School vouchers for D.C. parents passes U.S. House

By Andy Birkey | 03.31.11 | 9:51 am

A bill to continue a defunct school voucher program in Washington, D.C., passed the U.S. House on Wednesday afternoon by a largely party-line vote. Reps. Michele Bachmann, Chip Cravaack, John Kline and Erik Paulsen voted for the measure while Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Collin Peterson and Tim Walz voted against the bill. The controversial program has been criticized as ineffective and essentially a tool to funnel taxpayer money to religious schools. President Obama stated on Tuesday that he opposes the measure.

Franken contributes to ‘It Gets Better’ book

By Andy Birkey | 03.23.11 | 2:41 pm

Sen. Al Franken is a contributor to a book urging LGBT youth not to commit suicide because of bullying. “It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living,” by columnist Dan Savage contains an essay by Franken as well as fellow politicians President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, British Prime Minister David Cameron and celebrities Perez Hilton, Ellen Degeneres and Suze Orman. The book is based on a video project of the same name in which thousands of people have lent their voice in support of LGBT youth.

Protesters at a Feb. 2011 Anoka-Hennepin School Board meeting. Photo: Alec Lindsey

Tempers flare over anti-gay bullying at Anoka-Hennepin school board meeting

By Andy Birkey | 03.01.11 | 8:54 am

“If they are going to hell, I’m going to hell with them!” That interjection got one woman kicked out Monday night’s Anoka-Hennepin School Board meeting. Her statement came during the testimony of a conservative Christian parent who said she knows the “homosexual agenda” is “coming after our kids.” The exchange was part of a tense night of testimony over the district’s bullying policies and whether LGBT issues should be discussed in classrooms in Minnesota’s largest school district.

Kline cosponsors D.C. religious school voucher bill

By Andy Birkey | 02.02.11 | 12:48 pm

Rep. John Kline, chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, is one of five sponsors of a bill that would continue a controversial religious school voucher program in Washington, DC. The program, which was launched for a five-year trial in 2003, was found to have failed to improve student achievement in the district, but did have a benefit for social conservatives — it helped fund religious education in the nation’s capitol city.

EdWatch, group that helped launch Bachmann’s career, closes after 12 years

By Andy Birkey | 12.28.10 | 10:51 am

Edwatch, a controversial conservative education watchdog group, announced that its operations will close at the end of the year. Founded as the Maple River Education Coalition in the late 1990s, the group was an incubator for the political career of Rep. Michele Bachmann and drew the ire of elected officials in at least three political parties. The group was pro-gun, anti-homosexuality and opposed to federal intervention in local education.

Anti-gay bullying continues to be a contentious issue in Anoka-Hennepin School District

By Andy Birkey | 12.16.10 | 11:42 am

Monday night’s meeting of the Anoka-Hennepin School Board was a contentious one as the issue of bullying and suicide in the district again came up. The state’s largest school district opened an investigation into the suicides of nine students over the past year — some by students who were allegedly bullied for their sexual orientation — and said that it found no evidence that any of the nine were bullied. Students and parents criticized the district for its statement — at times the conversation devolved to shouting — while district officials said there’s not much they can do if students and parents don’t report incidents to the schools.

Minnesota Family Council pushes back in Anoka-Hennepin anti-gay bullying controversy

By Andy Birkey | 10.04.10 | 8:37 am

The Minnesota Family Council (MFC) is pushing back against efforts to improve the climate for LGBT students in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, where community members are mourning suicides by four LGBT students in the last year. The real issue is “homosexual indoctrination,” not anti-gay bullying, says MFC’s Tom Prichard, who says the students are dead because they adopted an “unhealthy lifestyle.” MFC’s campaign against anti-bullying education comes as national religious right groups mount a similar campaign in the aftermath of nearly half a dozen suicides by LGBT students around the country in the last month.

New ads: One pro-Emmer, the other anti-Dayton

By Andy Birkey | 09.23.10 | 2:47 pm

Two new ads released this week lend support to Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. In the campaign’s new ad, “Reform,” Emmer promises more money for the classroom. Another, by independent expenditure group Minnesota’s Future, attacks DFL candidate Mark Dayton,…