By Antonio D. French
Filed Friday, July 28, 2006 at 12:23 PM
Members of the State Board of Education yesterday discussed the loss of focus on the students of St. Louis Public Schools by both sides in the ongoing political battles affecting the district. Labels: Schools, Video_Reports
"I can remember six, seven, eight years ago when we had a great deal of concern about Kansas City and actually St. Louis was improving every year and things were looking like it might turn out to be one of the better urban districts in the country," said board member Thomas Davis of Kansas City.
"And here we sit these number of years later and St. Louis' trend line has clearly been down and decelerating faster than almost any district than we have data on," said Davis. He said that in all the discussion he has read about the current situation in the district, he has not seen a focus on student achievement.
Vanetta Rogers, the St. Louis regional board member, shared in her colleague's assessment. She said she also saw a loss of focus by the players in the ongoing soap opera that SLPS has become.
"You hear the adults -- with their factions and their views and their PACs and their whatever -- talking about who failed to agree with whom about what," she said. "But you don't hear enough about efforts to come together and try to create a single voice."
5 Comments:
At least the state has discovered the obvious. What else will they discover?
Some predictions-
The city of St. Louis is very segregated in housing.
The school district has been spending to much money.
It is hard to teach kids in inner city schools.
The city and county should merge.
No Child Left Behind is a bad joke.
7/28/2006 1:05 PM
Yet, still, the State Board does not accept responsibility for their part in this. They were complicit in the decision to allow Roberti to be an interim superintendent without meeting their own standards. Even an interim is supposed to be close to certification, whereas, Robert had no educational background whatsoever. He dismantled sorely needed alternative schools, let dropout specialists go, closed 9th grade centers (the big "new" idea from Williams), and many other very detrimental decisions. NOW they notice that the years of improvements in SLPS schools have slipped away?!
7/28/2006 1:08 PM
And some remember seeing Suggs and Roberti drunk together. So what hope will there be that he brings any objectivity to table? More of the same from Slay's cohorts.
7/29/2006 11:44 AM
I wouldn't minimize or derogate any education task force that includes Donald Danforth. Let's give 'em a shot.
7/30/2006 8:02 PM
Oracle, right on. I'm a liberal, and I have nothing but respect for Danforth. He's a good man.
And to the leading Anonymous on this:
White flight=segregated housing, lousy schools, and a bad tax base.
Yeah the district has been spending too much; on wages of teachers who don't put forth the effort, and administrators who don't get it.
It wouldn't be so hard to teach inner-city school children if the proper social mechanisms were in place; mandatory parental involvement; required yearly examination of instructional staff to ensure they are effective teachers, and testing well in conjunction with student achievement dictate pay raises and tenure.
I'm all for a City/County merger. I'm all for one school district, fire department, police department, and a drastic reduction of municipalities in the county. Unless it comes from on high in Jeff City (MOGA/Govenor), we'll continue to moan, and do little.
Anything this president has come up with has been a joke. This one less so. It makes since until you leave an important ingredient out; money. That and vouchers are killing urban and suburban schools.
7/31/2006 10:53 AM
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