Speakers at the MN150 education discussions

Vanishing Grads and Minnesota’s Future

  • Lori Sturdevant, moderator — editorial writer and weekly columnist covering state politics and government for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
  • Peter Hutchinson  — president of the Bush Foundation. He served as the commissioner of finance in the Perpich administration, deputy mayor of Minneapolis and superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
  • John Wade — president of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce and owner of SAND Development, LLC. He specializes in non-profit organization management.
  • Traci Parmenter — Chief Operating Officer of Admission Possible, a local nonprofit dedicated to helping promising, low-income young people prepare for and earn admission to college. She is a former high school Spanish teacher and policy fellow at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota.
  • Vinodh Kutty — headed a Citizen’s League study group on Immigration and Higher Education. He is also a coordinator for the Hennepin County Office of Multicultural Services.
  • Dr. Robert Holst — president of Concordia University, St. Paul

21st Century Schools:  What’s Needed?

  • Lori Sturdevant, moderator — editorial writer and weekly columnist covering state politics and government for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
  • Mitch Pearlstein — president and founder of the Center for the American Experiment. During the Reagan and Bush administrations he worked at the U.S. Department of Education. He has also served as an editorial writer and columnist. 
  • Angie Eilers — research and policy director at Minnesota Growth & Justice, a nonprofit, progressive think tank. Her areas of expertise are reform, implementation and evaluation of educational issues especially as they intersect with urban and rural poverty.
  • Bill Green — superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools. He is also an associate professor of history at Augsburg College and an adjunct professor at Saint John’s University.
  • Joe Graba — senior policy fellow at Hamline University and leader of Evolving|Education, a joint policy venture of the Center of Policy Studies and Hamline University that works nationally to help public education with the difficult process of change.