June 11, 2010 - MPR’s Brandt Williams profiles Jamil Jackson, who manages a basketball league where he mentors youth through a program called Change Equals Opportunity. Every week, Jackson convenes the program and basketball league at the Jerry Gamble Boys and Girls Club in north Minneapolis.
July 23, 2010 - MPR’s Jess Mador profiles Girls Rock N' Roll Retreat summer camp in Golden Valley. It is Minnesota's first rock and roll camp -- for girls only.
September 9, 2010 - Minneapolis Public Schools are vowing to do something about what the district is calling its "dropout crisis." An estimated 2-thousand students aren't enrolled in school, and some of them might get a knock on their door or a Facebook message about it this weekend. The district is enlisting volunteers to help re-enroll hundreds of students on Saturday as part of its "We Want You Back" campaign.
September 23, 2010 - MPR’s Tom Weber reports that after recent student suicides, there are efforts to change Anoka-Hennepin School District's sexual orientation curriculum policy. The policy states that sexual orientation topics aren't part of the curriculum, and it instructs teachers to remain neutral if the subject comes up in class.
October 6, 2010 - Midday presents an American RadioWorks documentary titled Testing Teachers. Studies show that students with the best teachers learn three times as much as students with the worst teachers. Politicians and education reformers are calling for big changes in how teachers are trained and evaluated…and in the way teachers are hired and fired too.
November 8, 2010 - On this Midday program, MPR’s Cathy Wurzer speaks with Supreme Court Justice Alan Page.
November 16, 2010 - MPR’s Sasha Aslanian reports that a student newspaper at a suburban Catholic school has sparked a debate over free speech by criticizing a Catholic DVD and defending gay teens. The DVD denouncing same-sex marriage was sent by Minnesota's Catholic bishops to parishioners prior to Minnesota elections.
January 13, 2011 - The St. Paul School Board has narrowed the field of candidates who applied for an open seat on the board. There are now 10 finalists remaining from the 41 who originally applied.
January 17, 2011 - Families in the Hawthorne neighborhood of north Minneapolis got a chance today to mark Martin Luther King Junior's birthday in a 21st century fashion - with technology. The Digital Divide Initiative is trying to get computers into the homes of low-income families with young children, to help close the technology gap between rich and poor.
February 23, 2011 - MPR’s Tim Post profiles Monte Bute, a sociology professor at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul. Bute is sharing one of the toughest struggles imaginable with his students…his battle with terminal cancer.