2024 Charter School Pioneer - Bob Wedl

Bob’ Wedl’s career in public education includes leadership experience in district as well as chartered schools, the Minnesota Department of Education and post-secondary education.  Originally a special education teacher, Bob served as Minnesota’s Commissioner of Education in the late 1990’s, leading Minnesota’s innovative standards and measurement initiatives, electronic data collection systems and new finance models including having revenue following students to the sites they attend.

In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, while serving as Deputy Commissioner of Education, Bob was a leader in the development of much of Minnesota’s public school choice policy and its programs, including inter-district open enrollment, post-secondary enrollment options, area learning centers, contract alternative schools and other “second chance” programs, as well as the nation’s first charter school law.

After leaving the State Department, Bob was a Senior Associate with Education|Evolving, where he played a major role in E|E’s work to strengthen the capacity and performance of charter schools in serving students with special needs.  He helped secure several multi-year Federal grants that funded Minnesota Association of Charter Schools’ Special Education Program and authored several resource guides for charters on Special Ed.  While at E|E, he also led the organization’s work to strengthen the role and capacity of charter school authorizers and founded – and initially led – the nation’s first single purpose authorizer, Innovative Quality Schools (IQS).

Later, Bob served as a key advisor to Superintendent Carol Johnson and was Executive Director of Planning and Policy for Minneapolis Public Schools.  In that position, he led the development of new models for serving students, expanded the Response to Intervention (RtI) model and assisted develop a “value-added growth accountability model.” He also provided direction to the district’s nine chartered schools and 33 contract alternative schools.

In retirement, Bob was a founding board member of People for PSEO.  He is currently an adjunct faculty member in the Education Administration Departments at the University of Minnesota and the University of Saint Thomas.  A native of the Saint Cloud area, Bob has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Saint Cloud State University.