Productive partnership between professor and politicians
The Sunday Star Tribune had a though-provoking and important op-ed article by Lori Sturdevant, one of our best columnists on public policy and higher education issues. Sturdevant writes
Fifty years ago next month, the Minnesota Legislature did something only one other state had come close to doing before. It decreed that "every school district ... shall provide special instruction and services for handicapped children of school age who are resident of such district."
Special education was born here. It's as proud a Minnesota export as Spam and Scotch tape. Maybe prouder.
The main import of the story is that this requirement is a badly underfunded mandate, and is putting severe financial burdens on school districts that have to make up the difference. However, there's some interesting Minnesota history in the piece. Two of the prime movers were Al Quie and Elmer Anderson, who later became two of our most distinguished governors and elder statesmen. The impetus came from the work of a University of Minnesota professor:
The possibility that many developmentally disabled children might be educated and become full participants in society was ripe for interim commission treatment in 1955. Warehousing the handicapped in state hospitals was increasingly seen as inhumane, costly and, with modern therapies, unnecessary. Research at the University of Minnesota by a visionary professor named Maynard Reynolds was showing what was possible with what eventually was called "mainstreaming."
This is the sort of outcome that shows the full promise of public engagement: a professor doing research that challenges the received wisdom, who then connects with government and civic leaders who use their knowledge, stature, and persuasive powers to improve society.