Itasca Seminar

So the committee got his text and began discussing the idea. By September the outlines of a proposal for a Minnesota chartering program had begun to emerge. That year the Minneapolis Foundation devoted its Itasca Seminar (actually held at Gull Lake) to K-12 education. The seminar program was developed at the foundation by Virginia Greenman, who had been auditing the Citizens League committee meetings. At Itasca Shanker repeated his chartering pro- posal. Sy Fliegel followed, describing the new and charter-like schools created in East Harlem in New York City. I offered Shanker a ride back to the Twin Cities airport. He accepted. We talked most of the way about the Citizens League committee and its development of his idea: Might a new school be set up outside an existing school building? Back at Gull Lake that evening, several attendees began discussing ways to realize Shanker's idea. The group included Joe Nathan, a Citizens League member who had presented to the committee, and Ember Reichgott, a DFL state senator. That began the process that lead to legislation. The Citizens League committee finished its work a few weeks later. In November 1988 the board approved the report “Chartered Schools = Choices for Educators + Quality for All Students," which was released in December. Citizens League President Peter Vanderpoel, staff and others met with Sen. Reichgott. During the 1989 session she got the program into the Senate omnibus bill, only to have the House resist in conference committee. She tried again in 1990 but got the same result. But at end of the confer- ence committee DFL House member Becky Kelso told Reichgott: "If you'd like to try that charter idea again next year, I'd like to help you."