Growth & Justice Blog

Mourning DeCramer and Kubly: Two ideal public servants from southwestern Minnesota

The passing over the last week of two outstanding public servants, each coincidentally named Gary and each serving with distinction in the state Legislature from rural southwestern Minnesota,  helps reinforce the other more important things in common  we loved about both of them.

Former state Sen. Gary DeCramer was a standout lawmaker and academic thinker, a key shaper of transportation and environmental policy in the state, including important progress in soil and water conservation.  DeCramer also had a distinguished career as a teacher and writer at the University of Minnesota's Humphey School and he was active in his Unitarian Universalist church.  He died unexpectedly while on a trip to western Minnesota.    

State Sen. Gary Kubly was also a man of faith, a Lutheran pastor who also stood out as a champion for the environment and conservation, including efforts to reduce pollution from giant agribusiness operations, and advocacy for renewable and wind energy.   He died after a courageous struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as ALS.

The most important thing they had common was the intelligent respectfulness they brought to the rough-and-tumble politica area.   Both had reputations as diginfied practical progressives who worked hard to find common ground and constructive relationships with their adversaries on the Republican or conservative side of the aise.   They were kind and decent ment who left their state and communities  a better place.

Dane Smith

Bringing home "total community" for rural and Greater Minnesota student success

Coming home to Minnesota this week after an intensive three days of learning about student success efforts in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky - and trying not to think about the state government shutdown - one of the first things to pop up on my screen was a powerful op-ed in the St. Cloud Times, headlined “Education is up to all of us."

The article was all about a “Student Success Task Force" and a "Linkages Committee" in the St. Cloud area, which is mounting a “total community" campaign aimed at cross-sector coordination to improve achievement and attainment. "The goal is to change the way people in the St. Cloud area think about the stake we have in the development of all (bold italics mine) our children."

The author of this eloquent appleal was Patrick Henry, a retired executive director of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical & Cultural Research. His main point was that everybody in the St. Cloud area needs to get enthused about a “communitywide, top-of-mind" campaign for universal student success. Henry urged his fellow central Minnesota citizens not to compartmentalize their thinking and not to defer to the public sector and public schools and welfare agencies, or the nonprofit sector, on a mission that’s so crucial to the health and vitality of all of Minnesota. Reading between the lines, Henry was exhorting businesses and all individuals to get more involved, whether they had children or not, and he noted that the portion of households with kids in school had dropped from one-half to one-fourth over the last few decades.

I really liked this passage: "Don't underestimate the significance of your attitude. When everyone in the community takes ownership and acknowledges a stake in the development and achievement of all (bold italics mine) our children, the St. Cloud area will be transformed, deserving even more its 'most livable' designation."

The column nailed almost perfectly the kind of “total community" effort we learned about from the Strive Partnership in Cincinnati, and that’s being advanced in Grand Rapids by the Blandin Foundation-supported Student Success Team, which organized our tour. One of the happier takewaways from the trip is that Blandin and Grand Rapids are already well along toward a "total community, cradle-to-career'' initiative for improved school success.

Strive in Cincinnati is very much an urban model but the principles - setting measureable goals and benchmarking results, focusing on early childhood, in-school and out-of-school support for every student, pushing academic rigor, preparing for and securing post-secondary attainment and career entry - can and should be applied everywhere.

Some specific advice for rural areas came in a presentation from the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, which has education attainment at the forefront of an agenda for 32 mostly rural eastern Ohio counties. And we were linked in that session to some other national efforts, including the Ford Foundation's "Creating Rural Wealth'' initiative, aimed at finding ways to sustain and restore economic health and wealth, which is really what the student success initiatives are all about.

More encouragement on the rural and urban homefront came from an all-day session I attended in St. Paul on Thursday, sponsored by the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership and its Minnesota College Access Network project. We heard from no fewer than 10 "College Connector Teams" as they proudly described their efforts to improve post-secondary participation and completion among specific groups, in rural areas as well as in the Twin Cities.

Among those that particularly impressed were a couple of teams focusing on American Indian kids at the Bois Forte and Fond du Lac reservations. We also saw presentations from groups working on minority success in St. Cloud, in Northfield and among the Latino population, which has a strong presence not just in urban areas, but in southern and western Minnesota.

--Dane Smith