Every week, North Star will take some time out of our schedules to bring you our favorite reads from the past week.

Jeff Van Wychen

The Third Way: Share-the-Gains Capitalism

Economist and for U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich outlines three economic systems in America: (1) “no-lose socialism” for the uber-rich, in which they get lavish compensation regardless of the performance of the corporations they manage, (2) “cutthroat hyper-capitalism” for everyone else, in which real wages decline and workers have little or no protection from arbitrary treatment, and (3) his preferred approach of “share the wealth capitalism,” in which workers are guaranteed a reasonable share of the wealth they help to create.

Stephanie Fenner

K-3 Quality Matters Too, Says New Policy Report

A new report from the Education Commission of the States finds that while pre-school education is important, we shouldn’t ignore the importance of early elementary education. Some of the findings include:

• Only 14 states require kindergarten to be full-day
• Only 19 states and Washington DC require schools to have transition plans to help children from pre-school to kindergarten

Among the Minnesota-specific findings: we have full-day voluntary kindergarten, and require an average class size ratio of 1:17 teacher to students in grades K-3.