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Summary
of Meeting withTed Kolderie
Civic Caucus, 8301
Creekside Circle, Bloomington, MN 55437
Friday, August 8,
2008
Guest
speaker: Ted Kolderie,
a founder (with Joe Graba) of Education Evolving
Present:
Verne Johnson, chair; David Broden, Paul Gilje, Bill Frenzel (by phone),
Jim Hetland (by phone), Jim Olson (by phone), and Wayne Popham (by phone)
A.
Context of the meeting--The
Civic Caucus takes a break, so to speak, today from focusing on specific
public affairs issues and addresses the question of civic and governmental
affairs leadership in the Twin Cities metropolitan area and in Minnesota.
The Civic Caucus invited Ted Kolderie, who has more than 50 years
experience in a variety of capacities of public affairs, to lead the
discussion.
B.
Welcome and introduction--Verne
and Paul welcomed and introduced Ted Kolderie, senior associate, Center
for Policy Studies, and founder, Education Evolving. A graduate of
Carleton College and of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at
Princeton University, Kolderie was previously a reporter and editorial
writer for the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, executive director of the
Twin Cities Citizens League and a senior fellow at the University of
Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
Kolderie has worked on
system questions and with legislative policy in different areas of public
life: urban and metropolitan affairs and public finance through the 1960s
and '70s. He is most recognized nationally for his work on K-12 education
policy and innovation, which he has focused on since the early 1980s. Ted
was instrumental in the design and passage of the nation’s first charter
school law in Minnesota in 1991, and has since worked on the design and
improvement of charter legislation in over 20 states.
C.
Comments and discussion--During
Kolderie's comments and in discussion with the Civic Caucus the following
points were raised:
1. Opening an issue for community discussion--The
purpose of our meeting today, Kolderie said, is to try to start a
discussion on the future of civic leadership in the Twin Cities area.
We'll talk today mainly about a significant change in civic leadership
that has occurred over the last 30 years or so, along with possible
responses to this change.
2. The disappearance of business institutions
with long term "roots" in the area--Kolderie recalled his work
as a journalist in the 1950s and 1960s and as executive director of the
Citizens League from 1967 to 1980. During this time, he said, certain
large business institutions saw a need for a strong metropolitan area
because their very roots were tied to the Twin Cities area. Usually, four
categories of business institutions were included: newspaper, department
store, gas and electric utilities, and bank. It wasn't unusual to
characterize such businesses as "can't run". They could be counted on to
be in the leadership of plans for strengthening the Twin Cities
metropolitan area, because their entire business future was tied to the
area. As a complement, he said, it was very common for major law firms
to encourage their lawyers to provide significant leadership on civic
affairs.
The big
change, Kolderie said, is that the "can't run", it turned out, could run.
Increasingly these major business institutions -- probably never truly
locally owned -- are headquartered elsewhere. In some cases they have been
acquired by firms elsewhere. In other cases the scale of the operations is
so vast that the Twin Cities area is but one of a host of metropolitan
areas. Thus these businesses feel no special allegiance to the Twin
Cities area.
And we see
more of this occurring, he said. Shortly, Northwest Airlines will become
part of Atlanta-headquartered Delta. The Twin Cities area always thought
of Northwest Airlines as "our local airline", and such organizations as
the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) had incentive to provide
preference to Northwest Airlines. Now, Kolderie wonders, will the MAC
continue to run a non-competitive airport for an airline now headquartered
elsewhere?
Another
example of the change, Kolderie said, is with business organizations
working on behalf of the metropolitan area and the state. Duane Benson,
while heading the Minnesota Business Partnership, would comment that he
had members who didn't live in Minnesota, he said.
The
position of public affairs vice president formerly was an extension of the
CEO, he said. Several years ago, a Fortune 500 CEO in Minnesota, coming
back from a meeting of other CEOs, asked his staff why he didn't have a
public affairs vice president. Shortly, he hired one.
Today the
public affairs department in a corporation is mainly designed to support
the commercial activity of the company. The overall health of the
community is no longer a prime concern. Large corporations are mainly
concerned about their relationship with Congress, less with Minnesota or
with their local community.
3. Turning to other areas of potential
leadership--If major corporations no longer are providing
leaders to think intelligently about questions of first order importance
to the Twin Cities metropolitan area, where will such leaders come from?
Kolderie noted this area has long looked to its large business firms for
leadership. But as these fade there are many small firms whose owners and
managers have this capacity. He mentioned a man in Omaha (his home town)
who had built a local electric-supply business: who first became head of
the Chamber of Commerce, got AAA baseball for the city, headed the charter
commission, became president of the city council, then mayor. Kolderie
also pointed to another kind of institution that today is arguably the
'can't run' institution: the big nonprofits. The University of Minnesota
and other colleges and universities; the arts and cultural institutions;
the health care organizations, the community foundations, and state,
regional and local governments. The difference, obviously, is that while
these have a stake in the local area and have good people they do not have
money to finance the studies, the projects to move the civic agenda. The
exceptions, of course, are the foundations.
Leaders of
these other institutions are beginning to show up as members of the boards
of city and metropolitan-based business organizations, he said. In
small cities around state, for example, it's common that the local
business "community" will include active participation from the city
manager, the school superintendent, and the administrator of the local
hospital. Not that such participation is bad, but Kolderie quoted an
official of a statewide business organization who is concerned that when
the need is to challenge the status quo, these local nonprofit interests
might prove unwilling to lead boldly.
4. Role of foundations is central--Kolderie
said that foundations in metro area, particularly the community
foundations, will play a key role. They must see their role, however, as
broader than direct financing for operating non-profit agencies. If they
are truly to fill the vacuum in traditional community leadership they must
have real vision about their responsibility in identifying key steps to
think intelligently about key questions affecting the future of the
region.
Kolderie
urged that a private-sector strategic-planning function be connected to
the programming of the private and community foundations. Groups such as
the Citizens League could advance proposals to the foundations--much as
the League always moved analyses and proposals to the Legislature, he
said. This would not depend on an invitation on the part of the
foundations any more than a Citizens League effort to get action from the
state has waited on an invitation from legislators. An effort at education
on issues as well as advocacy would be required. Perhaps proposals could
be advanced to foundations to urge them to be in a particular area or on a
particular problem. Foundations could be urged to put out a Request for
Proposals (RFPs) in some areas.
Organizations that might consider trying to influence a foundation might
fear that their own prospects for funding would be jeopardized. Kolderie
cited the example of a civic organization that dared not even discuss a
proposal that it look at how foundations set their priorities. But
beginning in the 1970s neighborhood community groups began pushing
foundations aggressively about increasing their giving to social causes,
with considerable effect.
Actually
we should be talking about 'philanthropy' rather than
just the organized
foundations, he said. Some private individuals might actually be more
aggressive, creative, than the organized foundations.
5. Itasca Project an exception?--It
was noted to Kolderie that a group known as the Itasca Project was set up
a few years ago, to involve only top corporate leaders. That group seems
committed to working on public issues affecting the future of the state,
in such areas as transportation, a Civic Caucus member said.
Kolderie
recalled attending a briefing put on by the Itasca Project in which those
present seemed to be lobbyists for their own interest area. The idea
seemed to be that 'doing something' had a much higher priority than
thinking our carefully what it was important to do. The key of course is
to have both, he said.
A member
of the Civic Caucus with close connections to Washington, D.C., said that
corporations today are working mainly to serve the next quarterly report
to stockholders.
6.
Being open to institutional change--Kolderie recalled that a
continual process of "institution building" occurred in Minnesota and in
Minneapolis and in the metro area from the 1940s into the 1970s, producing
such groups as the Minnesota Municipal Commission, the Urban Coalition,
the State Planning Agency and the Metropolitan Council. What
institutional change is happening now, he asked? He senses some benefit
from a "trends watch", established by the Wilder Foundation. However,
he's concerned that interest groups are too powerful in the development of
questions asked by Wilder. For example, on the question of measuring the
knowledge and skills of the people of the region, school superintendents
were able to limit the work to those subjects taught to young people in
school. This will block off any broad understanding of what are in fact
the skills and capabilities of the people of this region
A member
of the caucus asked about recreating civic leadership. Kolderie said there
is always an impulse to try to revive something in its previous form.
Probably what develops will be unlike the past; will take some new form we
cannot anticipate today. Civic activity has been broadening steadily. The
days when civic decisions were made at the Minneapolis Club are gone. In
Pittsburgh the Allegheny Conference, the old power-structure organization,
is basically gone. Participation widens; accelerated by new electronic
technology -- which the Civic Caucus is using itself, he noted.
Kolderie
said that with respect to the one area he now watches closely, education,
he sees some hopes that Governor Pawlenty is sensing a need for
fundamental change. Kolderie said he listened on MPR recently to
Pawlenty's talk at the National Press Club. In that talk Pawlenty
discussed the impact of technology on learning, using the example of a
resident of Stillwater who could take an online college-level course at
home, taught by a highly-qualified professor, at time convenient to the
resident, instead of having to drive 45 minutes of the University of
Minnesota, at a specified time, in a class with many others, and then
having to drive home again. He said he doubts that traditional educators
understand the change coming with individualized computer-based learning.
7. The urgent need for initiating proposals
for change--A member of the Civic Caucus said that leaders in
the private sector formerly saw their responsibility to participate
actively in developing proposals for change. Today, they wait for others
to propose solutions to which they can respond. Kolderie agreed: The
civic sector is no longer developing its own understanding of problems and
its own sense of strategy for action. He recalled that the Citizens League
in 1963 evaluated the big capital program of the Minneapolis Public
Schools. The League didn't simply say yes or no with respect to the
program prepared by the school board. It analyzed the plan, saw it was
simply a rehabilitation program -- a new wing for every building in town
-- and came up with an alternative plan to close and replace whole
buildings. When the board resisted, decided to submit its own plan to the
voters anyway, the League urged voters to reject the plan. Voters agreed
with the League; defeated the proposed bond issue. A consulting team was
brought in to provide a second, outside, opinion. It agreed the schools
needed a replacement program. One was drafted. The League supported it. It
passed. What civic institution has that kind of courage and clear sense of
policy today?
A Civic
Caucus member said that too many leaders today are simply managers, not
builders or risk takers. Another member said that the general public has
yielded its broader public interest to the sports entertainment industry
and other special interests.
Kolderie said he is
struck by how largely the discussion about public affairs consists simply
of (a) restating the needs and problems and (b) restating the goals and
objectives. Neither produces action, he said. Nothing happens until
someone provides a method; a way to get from where we are to where we want
to be. That takes thinking, discussion, good analysis, imagination in
developing proposals. So what is most important today is to develop,
somewhere, on some basis, the capacity to do that kind of policy thinking.
This is perhaps the kind of question of "first order importance" that the
foundations should be thinking about, he said.
D. Thanks--On
behalf of the Civic Caucus, Verne thanked Kolderie for meeting with us
today. |
