Article • February 2017
Ted Kolderie is one of two recipients this year of the Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs (MAAP) prestigious “Exemplary Award”. Ted received the award at the 34th Annual MAAP Conference last week at the Verizon Center in Mankato.
The Exemplary award criteria is as follows:
- The recipient must have demonstrated outstanding dedication, service and or commitment to alternative education.
- The recipient must have made a significant contribution to their students, their program, MAAP and/or their communities.
Ted has been a progressive and supportive force in education in Minnesota for many years. Below is a brief description of some of Ted’s rich history:
I’m a Middlewesterner. Grew up in Omaha. Went to Benson High. Then to Carleton College; majored in English. Accidentally got into the graduate school of public affairs at Princeton. Spent two years as a Pfc in the Army, partly at Fort Churchill up on Hudson’s Bay. Then joined the Minneapolis Tribune; covered Minneapolis city government before going to the editorial pages.
Left in 1967 when asked to be executive director of the Citizens League. There, worked on urban and metropolitan affairs — and began to be involved in public services redesign. In 1980 Harlan Cleveland asked me to be a ‘senior fellow’ at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute where he’d become dean. There, I began to be involved with the redesign of public education: with Gov. Quie’s task force; then with Gov. Perpich’s initiative on alternative schools and open enrollment.
Later, with chartering. By the early ’90s Joe Graba and I had founded Education Evolving, as a ‘design shop’ for innovation in public education, charter and district sectors both. I continue as a senior fellow there — and also with the Center for Policy Design, where I continue as an advocate for personalized learning, for professional roles for teachers, and for killing off the old institution of ‘adolescence’.