Voices & Choices for Children MN emerged to address a systemic failure: the systematic exclusion of communities of color and American Indian nations from the policy-making tables. To effectively address this, we needed a new ideological grounding.
Our coalition fundamentally rejects the common policy approach that frames disparities through a “deficit” lens—an approach that often focuses on what marginalized communities supposedly lack. This narrative relies on the dangerous assumption that the families of children who are not succeeding in standard systems have somehow “not prepared their children properly”.
We adopted a powerful counter-narrative: the failure lies not in the families, but in the systems that perpetuate exclusion. The harm is caused by the “systemic devaluing, undermining, disadvantaging or marginalizing of their individual identities”.
This ideological pivot—from focusing on “closing the gap” to affirming identity—is the intellectual engine driving our legislative agenda. It means we focus on creating new programs, like the Community Solutions Fund, that are designed to support and strengthen the assets already present within our communities.
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