Digitization made possible by the State of Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, approved by voters in 2008.
February 12, 1997 - Statewide standardized testing would be required for Minnesota primary and secondary schools under an agreement reached at the capitol this week. The Senate added a testing provision to the bill restoring 337-million dollars in planned cuts to schools. The bill now goes to a conference committee. Legislators and state education officials must now agree on what kind of tests should be used to measure academic achievement. Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Pugmire reports... --------------------------------------------------------- | D-CART ITEM: 7006 | TIME: 5:21 | OUTCUE: sound out --------------------------------------------------------- Minnesota's top education official says statewide standardized testing is the key to improving education for all students in the state. Robert Wedl, commissioner of the Department of Children, Families and Learning says
February 12, 1997 - Paul Wellstone is planning to retrace Robert Kennedy's tour of the South to focus attention on the plight of the poor. The tour is also prompting questions about whether Wellstone aspires to higher national office. Al Eisele says Wellstone's candidacy would probably be met with surprise on the hill. Eisele is editor of "The Hill," a political newsletter in Washington D.C. He also served as an aide to Vice President Mondale.
February 12, 1997 - State lawmakers are considering a package of new regulations designed to make snowmobiles safer for riders and pedestrians. The legislation comes in response to the record-setting pace of snowmobiling deaths this winter: 26 so far, including two children who were on foot when they were run over. Minnesota Public Radio's Martin Kaste reports.
February 12, 1997 - David Foster Wallace is best known for the giant novel "Infinite Jest", which, despite its daunting length, was apparently popular enough to be released in paperback recently. Wallace has also been writing non-fiction essays, which are now collected in a much less-imposing book.
February 12, 1997 - A Senate committee has dismised an election challenge by failed state DFL Senate candidate John Derus of Minneapolis. Minnesota Public Radio's Karen-Louise Boothe reports.
February 13, 1997 - Midday rebroadcasts award-winning MPR documentary Song Catcher, Frances Densmore of Red Wing. Following documentary, MPR’s Gary Eichten holds a discussion with guests Marcia Anderson, chief curator and head of the Museum Collections Department at the Minnesota Historical Society; and Faith Bad Bear, assistant curator of Ethnology at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
February 13, 1997 - As state and local officials around the country struggle to comprehend the complexity of welfare reform they're watching each others efforts to see what can be learned. North Dakota is out front in one area, with a new system to handle what used to be Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC. Minnesota Public Radio’s Dan Gunderson reports.
February 13, 1997 - One day after a faculty unionization vote at the University of Minnesota professors are still taking stock of the results. The unionzation failed by a very small margin -- 692 votes to 666 -- but as Minnesota Public Radio's Martin Kaste reports, pro-union professors aren't necessarily unhappy about the outcome.
February 13, 1997 - As many as one-hundred Native Americans and their Tribal leaders from across the state met with state lawmakers (today) at the Capitol. Although it's not unusual for native-specific issues to make their way into state policy...Minnesota Public Radio's Karen-Louise Boothe reports...the day was, nevertheless, a PRECEDENT-SETTING one: Each day there's a house or senate floor session...an invocation by a sworn state chaplain is offered. NEVER before has that chaplain been a native american spiritural leader. That is, until NOW. 58-year old Thomas Stillday Junior has become the Senate's first American Indian Chaplain...he's a spiritual elder from the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. After delivering a traditional Indian prayer during a peace pipe ceremony o
February 13, 1997 - The cultural paradoxes and misunderstandings of the Australian outback have found their way to St Cloud in the latest production at the New Tradition Theatre Company. Tonight the company premieres "Diddgitty-Doo" a play inspired by the real life story of a Wisconsin woman who finds herself in a remote aboriginal community. As Minnesota Public Radio's Gretchen Lehmann reports, "Diddgitty Doo" is a classic fish-out-of-water story with frustrating miscommunications and humorous bumblings, but it is also a serious story about the struggle of two people trying to relate to one another.