Education News

MPR News keeps track of the latest education news in Minnesota so you can understand the events shaping the future of learning and how it impacts students at any level.

Stay informed about local education events, policies and more happening in schools and colleges across Minnesota.

What's new at the U: Forester's Day, Amplatz and Fareed Zakaria
In this edition: We partake in timbersports with the U’s Forestry Club, recognize the opening of the new Amplatz Children’s Hospital and sit in on a lecture by noted author and CNN contributor Fareed Zakaria.
Texas college turns football field into farm In Texas, where football fields are hallowed ground, the state’s oldest historically black college is planting the seeds for community change between its fading goalposts. (Associated Press via The Boston Globe) Feds chase more student loan defaults The number of people who aren’t paying back their student loans…
Winona educator named Teacher of the Year
Katy Smith, an Early Childhood Family Education teacher at Goodview School in the Winona district has been named the 2011 Teacher of the Year.
Police monitoring Spring Jam parties near U this weekend
Minneapolis and University of Minnesota police officers will be watching for big parties in the Dinkytown area this weekend as the university holds its annual Spring Jam festival.
(Comic) What The Golden Sap Ratio is
One of many episodes of the comic Piled Higher and Deeper on life as a grad student.
Court considers release of charter school records
A federal judge will consider unsealing records in the two-year legal standoff between the American Civil Liberties Union and a Minnesota charter school accused of promoting religion.
Student-criticized voter-ID bill passes in the Senate
For those following the state legislation that would require voters to present photo identification at the polls — something students say would unfairly hinder a lot of student voters — the Senate bill has passed on a party line vote of 37 to 26. MPR’s Capitol View reports that Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, said…
In a piece about how University of Minnesota students will have to compete more and more with non-students for inexpensive housing, the Minnesota Daily offered a statistic I hadn’t seen before: The University of Minnesota may be the second-largest Big Ten school, but it has another distinction as well — the third smallest on-campus housing…
4 Minnesota community colleges make Aspen best-colleges list
Four Minnesota community colleges have been named among the top 10 percent in the country by the Aspen Institute, and are in the running (along with 116 others in the country) for the $1 million Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence: Alexandria Technical College Central Lakes College-Brainerd Minnesota State Community and Technical College Minnesota West…
“Put more simply, there is a far greater chance that students who come to the Twin Cities from another state will stay here than that students who go to Madison or Fargo or Billings will stay there after graduating.” — University of Minnesota analyst Peter Zetterberg, in a paper quoted by the Associated Press, which…