By Antonio D. French
Filed Sunday, March 18, 2007 at 5:53 PM
The St. Louis Public Schools students that five days ago entered City Hall seeking a meeting with Mayor Francis Slay today held a press conference at which they hinted that today may be the final day of their protest. Check back later for video from today's event, which included remarks from Superintendent Diana Bourisaw and details about a meeting scheduled for this week between the students and state education officials in Jefferson City.
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28 Comments:
Excellent!! Take this to the Govenor's Mansion or the Wainwright Bldg. Our dreams to be heard, they will not be pushed aside or turned into your own all cause you won't listen.
3/18/2007 6:03 PM
Is anybody ever going to make jay Nixon weigh in on this??
How legal was it to deny the last accreditaqtion point by changing a 2 year requirement to 5 years by the state board??
Talk to our attorney---he is not only a democrat, but he could possibly take things to a place where the makeup is different than the good old boy ass-grabbing--republican fundraising gang at the state board.
The Missouri supreme court.
3/18/2007 6:27 PM
I am surprised that they are not blaming all this is O'Brien. I thought she was the one we are to pick on.
3/18/2007 6:41 PM
O'Brien is a diva. That can be good---the need for attention can be a driving force for accomplishments. She did great work going after Floyd irons, and I think there were times when she had genuine fears for herself and her children because of it.
Seems like Bourisaw brings out the worst kind of jealous, insecure, irrational behavior we associate with divas.
There are some who think she secretly helped Slay by going after Williams, which created the excuse for the takeover.
She has been all over the map---you can give her credit or demonize her no matter which side you are on.
3/18/2007 6:50 PM
The students came from City Hall and joined huundreds of us that are demanding to Congress to stop the Iraq wall..They spoke of their efforts and we praised them ..I agree the Govenor's Mansion and the Wainwright(state)offices would be much more effective in their cause...God speed to their success and join us Mon.11:30 as we march to Sen.McCaskill's office to stop escalation of the war.$720.45 million from Cong.Clay's district has been spent that could have built 85 elementary schools or provided health care for 64,412 children the length of this war so for to give an example of waste..In Cong. Carnahan's district the cost of Iraq war $816.08 million or 96 elementary schools built or healthcare for 72,962 children the length of the war.We will meet at the park next to city hall at 11:30 Educate don't kill futures...
3/18/2007 7:51 PM
Well, having more elementary schools won't do us much good if Islamo-fascist suicide bombs are going off in our streets. We're spending blood and treasure (every drop a tragedy, certainly) now, so we don't have to spend even more later. The Islamic terrorists won't just stop on their own if we place nice, despite what you loony liberals think.
3/18/2007 8:31 PM
Look you last two, all you have to do is ask Antonio to post an article about the war in Iraq and then you will not have to hijack this thread.
Kjoe, you are showing a lot of repressed feelings. Ass-grabbing and diva???
3/18/2007 8:49 PM
Kjoe, you are showing a lot of repressed feelings. Ass-grabbing and diva???
3/18/2007 8:49 PM
That is a fair accusation.
They are not all that repressed. Several times, I have posted the exact contributions of Peter Herschend, (Branson) state board president, to the republican party---they add up to millions. He is a player. You have read the accounts of the agriculture secretary and his "cultural differences". It symbolizes the condescension and genuine lack of respect for women which has consequences far beyond any grabbing of anything.
As for seeing O'Brien as a diva---it is the best I can do to try and figure out her zig-zagging loyalties------that was incredibly brave work she did with Downs, Purdy, and Jones, as well as Bourisaw----people she now has no use for. The most likely explanation I have been offered is that when Bourisaw cut Bonner's salary from what she had promised him-----that was a major turning point in her shift to realigning with Slay. I try to figure her out, rather than demonize her.
Maybe I am more guilty than the republicans I criticize----stereotyping Veronica like that.
3/18/2007 9:38 PM
Why doesn't Veronica O'Brien's husband have her commited to a psychiatric facility for the mental health care that she desperately needs? Maybe he wants her to act crazy so he can get full custody of their children?
3/18/2007 10:02 PM
I also have been interested in O'Brien. If you know her history and who she has been quoted as admiring it is clear the is a very clever behind the scences politician. It is clear she does not need to do this and it seems clear that she always been truly on the side of the establishment. It was clear she had nothing in common with Purdy and Downs. Most think she used them. I agree with something that someone said earlier that she may have been working the big picture to bust up the district up. She was friends with Archibald and it is said she keeps it very quiet that it was Bert Walker who put her back in the St. Louis political scence. One thing for sure she is best friends with Jane Cunningham and a lot of republicans in Washington.
No doubt she is a diva. Far from crazy she just seems very unlike most traditional black women in St. Louis. That is if a white guy can say this.
3/18/2007 10:27 PM
People who keep talking O'Brien's family sound like close enemies of O'Brien. I think it seems like more fun to keep blaming everthing on her.
3/18/2007 10:30 PM
Alright Veronica, we are sorry that we all posted so many comments about the SLPS and left you out of them. Here is your bit of limelight:
Veronica is crazy!
3/18/2007 10:42 PM
I heard the name in the district was Queen O'Brien or Hurricane O'Brien not diva. One thing for sure if she comes anywhere near your branch of government be nice to her as you know she has been sent to bust things up and then take out her enemeies. Call her crazy if you want she is good. Send her to Riverview.
3/18/2007 10:51 PM
Ask Jay Nixion to weigh in on o'Brien. Really give her a crazy limelight.
3/18/2007 10:54 PM
The person who is really crazy and strange is French he is really strange.
3/18/2007 11:00 PM
The part of this all is that Slay went on vacation before he takes them all out. Funny, they are all sitting downtown with Bourisaw trying to save her face and Slay Jackson and the others are out somewhere having fun and celebrating.
3/18/2007 11:02 PM
Political Eye
Pay my legal bills
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 7:14 PM CDT
According to a source critical of the “stop the takeover faction,” SLPS board member William Purdy has been asking district employees to contribute to the legal fund established to dismantle the state’s legal right to intervene in the administration of the school district. This is asking district employees to support something - the opposition to state intervention - that a board majority has voted down.
3/18/2007 11:07 PM
one question, did irene smith make it to the restroom?
3/18/2007 11:12 PM
Okay,
You said Haas was crazy,
O'Brien is crazy,\
Amy is crazy,
Vince is crazy,
Rainford is crazy,
Slay is about to explode from
crazy inside of him,
Peter is a drunk and beats his
wife,
Bourisaw is on mental medication
and severely ADD,
Bill Purdy has the same
shameful habit as Jim Gant,
Now I get it, let's keep all of
these people they are all
perfect!
3/18/2007 11:53 PM
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3/19/2007 9:41 AM
True or False?
03/18/2007
The adults who led a group of high school students in a sit-in at City Hall last week billed the experience as a real-life civics lesson.
Instead, it was a lesson in cynicism, a textbook example of why the St. Louis Public School System is in the dire straits that it is.
Students from four high schools had occupied St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay's outer office for three days to protest an impending state intervention that probably will follow revocation of the school district's accreditation. The students demanded that Mr. Slay reverse his position favoring state intervention and "not take away our accreditation before the end of the school year."
The adults leading the demonstration — radio talk show host Lizz Brown and School Board member Donna Jones, among others — apparently didn't bother to tell the students that Mr. Slay does not control state educational policy or the city school district.
Students tearfully told reporters that they had been told that loss of accreditation would result in their college scholarships and financial aid being rescinded.
Not true.
Meanwhile, School Board member Peter Downs circulated an e-mail containing a letter from a Gateway Institute of Technology student claiming that the University of Hawaii would revoke her scholarship if the district lost accreditation.
Also not true.
Officials at the University of Hawaii said the student in question hadn't even applied for financial aid and that the district's accreditation status would not affect scholarships. The same policy was underscored by officials from the University of Missouri, St. Louis University, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
In short, the kids had nothing to worry about. But that didn't stop adults with an ax to grind from pushing fretting students in front of news cameras.
That takes us to the heart of last week's "civics lesson." Civics is defined as the study of the privileges and obligations of citizens. The real lesson in the St. Louis schools debacle all along has been adults shirking their responsibilities and not telling the truth.
If the adult puppeteers behind the "student protest" had put the needs of the kids first, they would have spent that time productively: in class, doing homework or preparing for tests. Again and again, school board members, administrators, union leaders and others charged with looking after the welfare of St. Louis schoolchildren have chosen instead to exploit them for their own ends. By lying to students and manipulating their emotions, they stooped to a new low.
"Some people think (the students) are being exploited; other people think they're heroes," Mr. Downs told the Post-Dispatch. "We all have differences of opinion. That's America."
Not true, Mr. Downs.
That is not America. It's not a matter of conflicting opinions. It's a matter of fact versus fiction, of lies versus truth. As the misguided Gateway student wrote in her letter: "Personal agendas, money, power and greed are put before us students."
True.
3/19/2007 9:48 AM
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3/19/2007 10:03 AM
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3/19/2007 12:24 PM
By the way-----someone who knows about these things said Jay Nixon will be required to defend dese.
darn. No wonder he is too ashamed to weigh in.
3/19/2007 12:28 PM
11:07 SO WHAT? If you disagree, don't contribute.
11:53 Anonymous slander is the bastion of fools who have nothing to say.
9:48 Your comment is not so relevently clever as you seem to think it is by posting it repeatedly.
Kjoe: I'm wondering about Nixon too. I've not liked him since he pursued the deseg agreement willy-nilly without regard for the consequences it would produce in the school district. At the time he seemed a man interested only in gaining public office advancement by showing that he could "save the people a buck". I hate to think that Missouri's choice will boil down to a rash self-promoter like Nixon vs. a sociopath like Blunt. It does not surprise me that Nixon has not weighed in on this issue since it would require the kind of courage he has not demonstrated so far as far as I am concerned. I can't imagine that anyone could "require" a man of integrity to support DESE if he felt it was ethically wrong to do so. Even if it were legally his duty, a person of conviction would defy it. I am afraid we are not dealing with that sort of person in Nixon. Is there anyone else on the Democratic horizon, or should we all just pin our stars on and prepare to board the facism train?
3/19/2007 2:31 PM
I have a higher regard for Jay Nixon than you do, and I wrote to him back in December, trying to alert him of just how wildly enthusiastic the republicans were about the Slay led takeover. I told him I had always been kind of fascinated by his relationship to the black voters in Missouri---and I thought this could be something he should consider where it is going.
I don't know if he read it.
When he was a Jefferson County lawyer, we played a lot of recreational basketball----he was really good at firing unexpected passes in unexpected directions.
I don't worry too much about him defending dese---he was required to defend that agriculture guy once a suit was brought---and Blunt gave him crap about not doing enough, early enough.
3/19/2007 4:55 PM
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3/20/2007 12:32 AM
Anon 12:32 a.m.:
There is a document going around that says that people who stay up late at night blogging slander about people they do not know have NO LIFE.
Please GET ONE.
Until then, Please shut up.
3/20/2007 8:59 AM
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