Recent discussions about a statewide effort to unionize in-home child care providers raise a number of good questions. But the one question that stands out — and the one lacking a definitive answer — is really quite simple. How will it help the children? Please know that question is posed with s...

With all the uncertainty surrounding how health care reform might play out, the strategy for states should be to control the things they’re able to control, and Minnesota has an opportunity to do that while helping shape the system. Minnesota can be a leader in developing health care exchanges, th...

The dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, postponed from August, has been rescheduled for Oct. 16. That date should be moved forward again, unless the ceremony includes a pledge to correct the embarrassingly misleading quotation on the side of the Stone of Hope....

“Slavery by Another Name,” a book by Wall Street Journal senior correspondent Douglas A. Blackmon, won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for its historical account of the exploitation of African American prisoners in Southern states from the late 19th century until World War II. But the state of Alabama see...

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Everything is on the table. That was the message that Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Chancellor Steven Rosenstone told the system’s board of trustees when he addressed them after a retreat with college presidents for strategic planning. His message was a step in a different direction �...

It may be called a ”supercommittee,” but nobody expects any heroics. The deal reached over the summer to raise the debt ceiling created a bipartisan committee to identify ways to reduce budget deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. Few people expect anything to come of it, assuming th...

When we flip a switch, we expect lights to come on. When it’s hot outside, we count on our air conditioning systems to keep us cool inside. We want to be able to drink tap water without boiling it first. When we flush a toilet — well, out of sight, out of mind. But no one wants to walk onto thei...

The recent execution of Troy Davis in Georgia again highlights the moral indefensibility of putting someone to death using a judicial process that is inherently fallible.  The latest case of taking someone’s life when too many doubts about the conviction exist should offer relief and pride to...

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