By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, March 15, 2007 at 9:34 AM
While students were settling into their spots for an all-night protest in his office, Mayor Francis Slay was in Jefferson City testifying in favor of a bill that would grant him the power to open more charter schools in the City of St. Louis. Labels: Schools, State_Senate
Freshman State Senator Jeff Smith, the sponsor of the controversial bill, spoke with Pub Def Tuesday about Senate Bill 564.
30 Comments:
Stake takes over the SLPS, while Mayor Slay gets the Charter Schools. Enrollment drops at SLPS, as the State only makes the SLPS worse, and Charter Schools take the kids. Slay has control of the Schools. Nice move.
3/15/2007 10:41 AM
Go Francis! Go Jeff! Provide us parents with options to provide our children with a quality education. We do not want to move from the city to gain access the best learning opportunities for our children.
3/15/2007 11:13 AM
Anonymous, the charter schools are performing more poorly than the SLPS. So, is that what you are cheering about? And there will be less State demands and oversight? How many charter schools have already been closed for fiscal mismanagement?
Even the county schools are struggling with some of the city kids who have made their way out there.
If this goes through, more madrases (Muslim schools) can open up too.
3/15/2007 11:40 AM
Philo-
What is wrong with the Muslim population opening schools for their own benefit?
3/15/2007 12:31 PM
Anon 11:13
"Go Francis! Go Jeff! Provide us parents with options to provide our children with a quality education....
FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR CHILDREN WOULD YOU PLEASE LOOK AT THE CHARTER SCHOOLS' TEST SCORES IN COMPARISON TO SLPS TEST SCORES ON THE DESE WEBSITE!!!!
dese.mo.gov choose "school data and statistics"
And as you read the Confluence Academy's test scores--which are in SINGLE DIGITS--please remember that Jeff Smith is connected with this school. And when you see other SLPS test scores are SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER--please remember that Mayor Slay has done everything possible to dismantle and destroy these schools for years now.
3/15/2007 12:53 PM
Anon 12:53-
From the P-D today:
"But a Post-Dispatch analysis in 2005 showed charter school scores increasing slightly faster than those of public schools."
That is the relevant fact, not the all caps garbage you wrote in your post.
The SLPS is in disastrous shape and we need all the public options (like public charter schools) to be available for our children.
3/15/2007 1:30 PM
A slight increase when you are already behind is not particularly encouraging. When there are SLPS schools where kids are doing so well, such as the one my kids attend, your comment that the SLPS is in disastrous shape is really offensive to me as a parent. I wouldn't take my kids out of this school no matter how much money someone offered me as a voucher to go to a private hoity-toity rich kid school. Some students do not choose to do well in school. The school cannot control that, nor can the teachers. Kids who are going to do well will do well anywhere, and kids who aren't won't no matter how fancy the facility is. No charter school for my kids, ever. If you want your own kids to be guinea pigs go for it, but not with my tax dollars.
3/15/2007 1:45 PM
Was there a vote in the committee on the bill?
3/15/2007 1:45 PM
RE doug duckworth 10:41:
You've nailed the strategy.
Don't forget to include Slay planting O'Brien to incite the state takeover and the role the PD played in hyping everything up into "emergency" status.
There IS no actual "emergency" in SLPS. There is a superintendent, an elected board that has been in disagreement--but there is an impending election, there is an accreditation question that is not supposed to be addressed until 2008, the children's low performance and social problems have been going on for decades. WHAT'S THE HURRY?
Oh yeah, there's an election in 2008, and the voters might end the federal NCLB money train. It's ALL ABOUT MAKING A BUCK BEFORE THE GRAVY STOPS FLOWING.
Meanwhile, in school after school in the "district that refused to die" it is, was and will continue to be ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN every single day.
3/15/2007 1:53 PM
Don't forget the charter schools (Slay & Co.) will also be eligible for federal NCLB funding, without having to meet AYP as SLPS had to.
It's only a matter of time before enough people figure out what's REALLY going on behind the political guise of caring about the children's education.
The MAP test is worthless, AYP targets are arbitrary and racist, Reading First is federal money being funneled to a well-connected network of buddies, and all of it is being done to the harm of the poorest children in America.
Pride and arrogance and greed vs. the poor and humble and needy...I'll stand with the huddled masses any day. I would not want to be Bush, Slay, Smith, Blunt or any of their kind when they are told that "what they did to the least of God's children they did to Him".
Good intentions are not enough for those in leadership. With that position comes the responsibility to make sure their policies are DOING what they intend. THEY ARE NOT.
3/15/2007 2:00 PM
Lift for Life Academy and St. Louis Charter School have both failed to meet AYP for five years and are targeted for corrective action. What great charter shcools we have.
3/15/2007 2:21 PM
Okay, so if these two charter programs are so great (the ones Smith is talking about), why doesn't anyone want to sponsor them?
3/15/2007 2:25 PM
Anon 1:30:
If you would take my advice IN ALL CAPS instead of basing your children's destiny on Post Dispatch articles, you would see the truth. Here is how easy it is to dupe those who won't look any further than what's on the PD headlines:
Confluence Academies Communication Arts scores are available only since 2004. So a "data analysis since 2005" would be based on TWO scores. In analyzing these TWO scores, the 2004 score is 0. Yes 0. The 2005 score is 7.1. Therefore, statistically, I can say that my data analysis in 2005 shows a more than 700% rate of increase in Communication Arts scores for Confluence Academies.
See how easy it is to paint the numbers to say whatever you want? The TRUTH is not in data analysis, but in the individual MAP scores of various schools. The TRUTH is that MAP scores vary wildly from year to year up AND down at EVERY SCHOOL IN MISSOURI. The test is a sham. But only actually looking at the data reveals this, not taking someone else's word for what it says.
3/15/2007 2:34 PM
Re Anon 2:25, there is a movement to bring a KIPP school to St. Louis. First, we are looking for properly trained and capable staff and administrators, private donors, and the like. Don't worry, it's coming. Sit tight.
3/15/2007 2:49 PM
Slay may have "planted" O'Brien, but it was you Local 420-types that elected her.
3/15/2007 2:56 PM
I have a question.
It has been clear for decades (three decades anyway) that being graduated from SLPS isn't proof of readiness for anything except perhaps sitting quietly for a very long time. In order to have any information at all about the readiness of as SLPS graduate, more information has been required. This has usually come in the form of essays and standardized test scores. I recognize these are imperfect instruments, but they're far better than school district accreditation status.
So, does the accreditation status of the SLPS matter a whit to any college admissions officer anywhere, and if it does, why?
Could Mayor Slay "prove" that the lack of accreditation of the SLPS will not hurt them by showing that it does not help?
3/15/2007 3:12 PM
Question: "What is wrong with the Muslim population opening schools for their own benefit?"
Answer: Nothing if paid for by the Muslim population, not the taxpayers. In such schools the Koran must be taught, which defines infidels and what they deserve--forced conversion or death. In most places around the world, such schools are called madrases, and often are where brainwashing of young minds for suicide bombings take place.
No Catholic, evangelical, Lutheran, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, or other religious school should be supported by taxpayer dollars.
Charter schools do not face the same demands or regulations that public schools face.
Charter schools are really "back-door" approaches to privatizing education but funding with public funds.
Do we really want to open this door beset with grave potentialities?
3/15/2007 5:45 PM
Anon 2:49, who is behind this movement? I'm not worried, my kids aren't ever going to set foot in a charter school. Again, if this is such a great program, why all the secrecy? Shouldn't the sponsors be proud?
3/15/2007 5:47 PM
MAP scores for any given grade for one year are different the next because they are different students. That's why it's ludicrous to say that the Charter school's higher score is "improvement".
3/15/2007 7:16 PM
Philo-Teckno went to the George Bush school of peace negotiations.
3/15/2007 8:21 PM
No, Philo-Teknos lived in the Arab/Muslim world. Es-salaam alikum.
Philo-Teknos saw the teachint that takes place in a madrasa.
However, Philo-Teknos doesn't think any religious-oriented school should be supported by tax dollars (separation of church, synagogue, mosque, temple, and state)
George W. Bush is clueless to what is taught about infidels in Muslim education.
3/15/2007 8:54 PM
Philo you are not helping your argument by throwing this smoke screen up. Are you really saying that Saint Jeff is going to enable al qaeda style schools here in our fair city? WOW!
3/15/2007 9:56 PM
No, I'm just saying charter schools, as unregulated as they are and as loose as they are, contain serious potentialities. Someone else referred to the mayor's setting up pseudo catholic (charter) schools.
No religion-oriented or religious-backed school should be supported by tax dollars (period).
3/16/2007 7:57 AM
You have a very interesting discussion on this website.
FYI, something from today's Wall Street Journal: "In regard to "The Weekend Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Free Radical"
Were there more courageous people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the West might not be in the mess it's in today. While the left in Europe and America continues to call Islam a "religion of peace" soiled by a few bad apples, Ms. Hirsi Ali gives voice to those of us who believe that Islam is itself the primary threat to our way of life: a dangerous, consuming ideology totally inconsistent with both modernity and the fundamental values of democracy.
As Ms. Hirsi Ali shows so clearly, it takes courage to see the tenets of Islam for what they really are, rather than what the multicultural apologists want to believe. Islam's treatment of women is, of course, instructive in its sanctioning of domestic violence, murder and genital mutilations among other heinous acts. What kind of religion condones such behavior toward its own believers? A religion that sees the end (pure submission to Allah) as more important than the means it employs to achieve them. Make no mistake: Ms. Hirsi Ali understands that we are in a struggle for our very future against a growing global movement that will stop nothing short of achieving its true endgame -- the elimination of the "infidel" from the face of the earth." Kenneth Davenport, Fort Collins, Colo.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was a Somalian Muslim who served in the Parliament in the Netherlands and is now in the U.S. There is a Muslim death threat against her life because she speaks the truth. There is an American psychiatrist of Muslim background in California who also spoke up and lives in hiding.
So your Philo-Teknos is anticipating what can happen in charter schools where religion can be the driving force.
3/16/2007 10:11 AM
Philo-I'm not buying into it. I do not believe that Slay or Saint Jeff will start a religious Charter School no matter what you say or who you pretend to be or cut and paste from other people.
From the Weekly Reader August 1972=="Philo makes outrageous statements"
3/16/2007 1:15 PM
Saint Jeff? Since when? There is nothing to sell. Therefore, nothing to buy. Keep public schools non-sectarian is the safest route.
3/16/2007 1:23 PM
In other words, death threats against Muslim women who speak out do not matter to you?
Fortunately, you are not in a position to defend liberty, freedom, or freedom of speech. Otherwise, no one would be safe.
3/16/2007 1:25 PM
More off topic smoke from Philo. Hmmm why, I wonder.
3/16/2007 1:33 PM
Trouble said seems to be living in a here and now world without thought to tomorrow.
Let's get back to the subject. Slay's push for charter schools is a for-profit scheme for some and does go along his behind-the-scenes Catholic agenda. Look what he was behind with Waring School, property now owned for a pittance by STLU for a sports arena.
3/16/2007 1:43 PM
When did this become a dialog on Belfast? Catholic agenda?
You don't like charter schools, he likes charter schools. Perhaps he does not see a way to fix the school district because he sees you always blocking any change. You don't like change because you are entrenched in the mediocrity.
For the record-I don't like the Charter School idea any more than Philo. I just have different reasons. Those reasons- My tax dollars are paying for a system. It is broken and needs to be fixed. I will not settle for mediocrity.
3/16/2007 2:34 PM
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