With one term in office and an electoral defeat behind her, former state Sen. Kathy Saltzman, DFL-Woodbury, stepped away from politics in 2011 to lead a group that places AmeriCorps tutors in state classrooms.
The position built on her legislative work aimed at ensuring kids are proficient readers by the end of third grade, and has helped schools locally, with 47 tutors now working in the South Washington County, Stillwater and North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale districts.
But Saltzman said she missed the excitement and broad impact that comes with the give and take of public policy.
So now she is back in the fray, and in a big way, as state director for StudentsFirst, a school reform group with a national presence -- and a powerful adversary in the form of Education Minnesota, the state teachers' union that denied Saltzman its endorsement in 2010.
Adding to the challenge facing her in 2013 is the takeover of the state House and Senate by DFLers who, generally speaking, have resisted reform ideas of the sort promoted by StudentsFirst during the 2012 legislative session.
Saltzman, undeterred, said that she believed this year's election showed voters want policymakers to set aside special interests.
"The question is: Where can we find common ground?" she said last week. "What kind of policies put the most effective teachers in front of students, empower parents so they are involved in their children's education and ensure fiscal accountability for our education investments?"
StudentsFirst, founded by former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, describes itself as a bipartisan grassroots movement promoting common sense reforms. In Minnesota, one of 17 states in which it now is active, the group this year backed a key Republican priority: the end of the "last-in, first-out" seniority-based system of teacher layoffs that critics contend cuts loose too many good, young teachers.
