Op-Edit by Sen. Al Franken — The American Dream, and its promise of prosperity, has long been predicated on the simple idea that opportunity is a right, and not a privilege, and that every individual should be afforded a level playing field on which to set out into the world.

To fulfill this promise to our children, we must close the school achievement gap that is leaving so many of our children behind.

Yet reversing decades of educational inequality is no easy task. There are exemplary schools scattered across the country that are proving every day that while they cannot solve all of their students’ problems, they can push them to increasingly higher levels of achievement under the most trying of circumstances.

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Washington, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Monday, Jan. 25 joined 32 of his colleagues in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) urging the extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits.

“Making sure that Minnesotans can count on the vital safety net that jobless benefits and COBRA provide is absolutely crucial,” said Sen. Franken. “Folks are hurting right now and we need to be doing everything we can to relieve the burdens they’re under.”

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U.S. Sen. Al Franken will introduce Tuesday a $10 billion jobs-creation bill intended to put more Americans back to work by the end of the year through small businesses hiring and public projects.

The bill, which could end up as part of the Obama administration’s jobs plan, would employ contractors to refurbish energy-leaking public schools, offices and housing.

Franken is eyeing a piece of the unspent money from the $750 billion bank bailout. The money would be used for wage subsidies for qualified new hires by businesses of less than 500 employees and government-hired contractors in a bid to put 500,000 people back to work.

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Nearly a month after the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of an airliner headed for Detroit, Minnesota’s two senators questioned top government officials Wednesday about holes in the nation’s airport security infrastructure and ways to prevent a similar attack in the future

In a series of committee hearings mired in detailed logistics, lawmakers examined why several federal agencies failed to stop Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane though they had indications he was a potential threat.

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St. Paul, Minn. — U.S. Sen. Al Franken said “one way or the other” a health care reform bill will pass Congress.

“People have asked me what sort of surprised me in the Senate,” Franken said. “And you think of it as the greatest debating society in the world, or it’s billed as that, and it hasn’t been, especially in the health care bill.”

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In this time of increasingly acrimonious partisanship, the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals is grateful that the junior senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, has joined hands across the partisan divide to author the School Principal Recruitment and Training Act. Sen. Franken, Democrat, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican from Utah, recognize that supporting quality principal leadership is essential to providing for the quality education of every public school student. I am grateful for Sen. Franken’s commitment to supporting the recruitment, training and retention of principals for high-need schools.

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Give the Northland’s congressional leadership some credit. While the rest of us were giving at church, mailing checks or even texting money to help Haiti and the victims and survivors of last week’s earthquake, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, all of Minnesota, were finding more tangible and more direct ways to assist.

Franken joined 22 of his colleagues Thursday in a letter urging Senate leadership to support “robust emergency funds.”

“The thoughts and prayers of Minnesotans are with the Haitian people,” Franken said in a statement. “It is nearly impossible to comprehend the scope of this disaster.”

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Constituent service isn’t always the coolest part of a politician’s job. A lawmaker intervening to solve a constituent’s specific problem rarely has the glamor of a heated floor debate or visit abroad.

But this is just what helped Harry Brown’s retain its General Motors franchise after GM tried to remove the Faribault business from its network.

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This month, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., surpassed what should have been his one-year anniversary in the Senate. Instead, his swearing-in was delayed six months while the state sorted out an achingly close election that resulted in a 312-vote victory for Franken and a late arrival in Washington, D.C., that made him the 100th senator.

The Pioneer Press spoke to Franken recently about his first six months on the job. The interview has been edited for length:

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WASHINGTON – Speaking directly to 20,000 unemployed Americans, including an estimated 3,000 from his home state, U.S. Senator Al Franken pledged Friday to make job creation “our first priority and our second priority and our third priority” in the Senate this year.

The Minnesota Democrat joined AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, on a nationwide conference call to address the jobs crisis. Franken and Trumka answered questions from unemployed workers, and members of the media were allowed to listen in.

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