By Antonio D. French
Filed Sunday, March 18, 2007 at 10:38 AM
The group of St. Louis Public Schools students engaged in Day 5 of their sit-in demonstration at City Hall has sent out a press release announcing a press conference this afternoon. Labels: Announcements, Mayor, Schools
Superintendent Diana Bourisaw is scheduled to join the students for the event which may, as we reported yesterday, announce an end to the City Hall sit-in and a re-targeting of the students' efforts from the now-vacationing city mayor to state education officials who are expected to meet Thursday to strip SLPS of its accreditation.
Press Release
Who: St. Louis Public Schools students and Dr. Diana Bourisaw
What: The students of St. Louis City Public Schools will hold a press conference.
Where: Downtown City Hall – Room 208 "The Kennedy Room"
When: March 18, 2007 promptly @ 2:30 p.m.
Topic: "Deconstructing the Myth: Why Our Scholarships and College Admission Are Still At Risk"
43 Comments:
Something tells me these semi-literate kids didn't come up with a title like "Deconstructing the Myth... ." More adult puppeteers at work.
3/18/2007 10:52 AM
Anonymous, I deeply resent your mischaracterization of these kids' abilities. As someone who has spent a good amount of time with them over the past few days, I can honestly say what you have here is some of the city's best and brightest.
I think this entire situation, and the way it's been handled by the media and the mayor's office, really shines a light on one of the most damaging problems in our city: class discrimination.
These are children. These are the young people of our city in whose name all this "education reform" is done. But the very people advocating the reform can't manage to sit down and interact with these young people for more than an hour.
To see the mayor and his staff interact with these kids is like watching video of an Iowa-born soldier patrol the streets of Bagdad.
What happened to "one St. Louis"? It is clear that the people who "care" enough to take over SLPS, don't even care enough to sit down for as long as it takes to listen to and try to understand the very people they are supposedly saving.
This is what adds to the perception that they do not care about these kids, or their parents, or people like them at all.
I completely agree with Sylvester Brown's column today; the mayor has blown an opportunity to show real compassion and leadership and to ease the legitimate fears of our city's young people.
3/18/2007 11:08 AM
I'm not a religious guy but "Amen".
The Post has two faces. In black and white.
3/18/2007 11:28 AM
I agree, Antonio and Jim. But, Sylvester Brown should not have to be the only one who gets it. Others should have spent some time with the students before running off at the mouth (and the pen) about their abilities, motives, or concerns. Metro is one of the few high schools in Missouri that excels on the MAP. Most of the morons who stereotype our kids have no clue that Metro is even an SLPS school. I heard one idiot on the news saying that "very few" city school school students go to college! Can you believe that?!
3/18/2007 12:03 PM
I read the Sylvester brown column and thought--they are starting to get it.
then I read the savage, and irrational ranting of the pd on the featured editorial page and wondered-----are they really that stupid? Or is it a financial thing?
3/18/2007 12:17 PM
Adric said... "I heard one idiot on the news saying that "very few" city school school students go to college!"
That "idiot" was the mayor's chief of staff, Jeff Rainford. Click here to watch the video from Channel 2.
3/18/2007 12:57 PM
I read Sylvester Brown's column and thought hmmm the Post is making sense today...then I see the following in the editorial:
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.
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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.
So is this true or not????
3/18/2007 1:07 PM
the editorial board seems out of sync with Sylvester brown. They don't respectfully disagree---they practically call him a liar.
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
or
Quote:
And neither were officials from the state's education department. A press release issued Thursday was rife with nebulous language. Officials "believe" students from an unaccredited district will have valid diplomas and "should" not be disqualified from admissions or financial aid. "However," the news release continued, "it is possible that students could encounter obstacles in some cases."
Quote:
Slay was technically correct when he told the students that some of their demands were state matters, out of his realm of authority. However, his hands-off excuse doesn't wash.
The district lost accreditation points under his select board members and the "reform plan" he supported. Slay immediately called for a state intervention after his chosen board members lost elections last year. If he plans to turn the school district into a massive charter school/public school hybrid, he should darn well be prepared to address all fears, no matter how unfounded he deems them.
"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."
3/18/2007 2:12 PM
The Post disagrees with Brown because he is wrong. It's as simple as that.
Look, the Post has done their research and meticulously debunked all the myths being propagated by the "protestors". The "protestors" have not provided any concrete information to back up their claims.
Good for the Post for standing up and showing what a farce this whole "protest" is.
3/18/2007 3:01 PM
The Post editorial was beneath contempt, dumb and wrong even for them, and that's considerable.
They were heavily invested in the Slay dogs that ran the district into the ground, are still in denial about that, cant bring themselves to admit they were wrong, and oppose in principle anything done or suggested or believed in by their opponents.
Their group, the Slay dogs, couldnt do anything good, so now they support a takeover rather than give the others a chance after two strong elections and a good new superintendent.
In a word, unbelievable. Not to mention dysfunctional and no-doubt pre-orgasmic. Ok, that might be more than one word, but as Adam Coralla would say, "Perfectly normal, perfectly natural."
3/18/2007 3:39 PM
I find it telling that no one in favor of the protestors has countered the P-D editorial on the facts. They caught Downs and others spreading what was, at best, misinformation. Where's a response to that on factual, not emotional, grounds?
3/18/2007 3:42 PM
Anyone know if the kids spoke English at their press conference?
3/18/2007 4:14 PM
Anybody know where Steve Giegerich is these days? I've noticed that he has not been published since his little encounter with the students. Could he be the secret pen behind the editorial?
To the elitests who take swipes at the children, grow up and act mature. Your ignorance is telling.
As far as facts, follow the money trail for charter schools. Why couldn't $23 million dollars in bonds used to help the SLPS, and not Confluence? Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Jeff Smith may be against vouchers, but he is open to lining his pockets in the name of Charter Schools. Francis Slay has found his meal ticket for the future. Any parent interested in sending their child to Francis Slay Academies of the Future, I fear your board meetings may be more entertaining than the current SLPS BOE!
3/18/2007 4:37 PM
""Look, the Post has done their research and meticulously debunked all the myths""
let me try again.
pd--"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"
Sylvester---" A press release issued Thursday was rife with nebulous language. Officials "believe" students from an unaccredited district will have valid diplomas and "should" not be disqualified from admissions or financial aid. "However," the news release continued, "it is possible that students could encounter obstacles in some cases."
I guess the pd's use of the vague verb "underscored" gives them an out on this.
3/18/2007 5:06 PM
I find it intersting that of the "several adults" present withthe children, neither Lizz, Quincy Troupe, April Harris or Irene Smith have ever had the pleasure of actually having children. Seems like they enjoy living vicariuosly through others.
Just like Gearge Bush, they are quick to sacrifice other peoples children to their respective wars (bush v. sadam / brown v. slay).
Antonio, I like your analogy to Bagdad . . .
It's not uncommon for people who have been told they have an enemy to begin acting against that enemy, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. No weapons of mass destruction (Iraq), no secret plot to destroy public schools (SLPS). A people who want to rid themselves of an occupying force to determine what best for them (Iraq), a community of parents who want something better for their children (true school choice).
Pharoah Burisaw, let my people go!!! If they want to get out of this system, let them go! And please do not tell them they can not utilize the same resources that are used to educate them in the standard "public" school system.
3/18/2007 5:19 PM
I heard this student Kristan that started this stuff with the scholarship works for Bourisaw downtown. More reason to believe that Boaurisaw and the board are behind this protest.
3/18/2007 5:54 PM
Bulldog Bob-
Your post is yet another indication that those on "your" side have resorted to emotion and mistruths over reason and facts.
The $23 million you cite as going toward Confluence Academy is not public money (it's a bank loan) and therefore could not be directed toward the public schools. In fact, it is private money that is being directed into public charter schools. Essentially, this is the opposite of school vouchers.
Your insinuation that Jeff Smith is profiting from this is absurd. Maybe you could explain how Smith, a volunteer board member at Confluence, is "lining his pockets"?
3/18/2007 6:11 PM
Nonpartisan French, no way. French your days are numbered just like SLPS. Do you even have a job?
Everyone knows you are in bed with Downs. Just look at your own archives.
3/18/2007 6:45 PM
French is one of the adults leading the kids in the wrong direction. Next he will be selling the video to the children and their families.
I say give them all their own district and let them roam and reproduce together. Make sure Hammonds is there for Bourisaw as we all know their history.
3/18/2007 6:48 PM
Antonio D. French wrote--
These are children. These are the young people of our city in whose name all this "education reform" is done.
The young people who this [state takeover] is being done for are the ones who can't read at grade level, don't graduate and have a higher chance of being in prison than in college.
The ones who are going on to college, truly great for them, but there are so, so many more not even coming close to their level of achievement. There are obviously other societal factors at work, but that doesn't excuse the SLPS.
There are people who will do well in just about any circumstance and are those who won't do well in just about any circumstance, it is educating those on the fence that is the challenge.
3/18/2007 9:27 PM
I voted for LEwis Reed dspite the A.French/L.Brown connection; I hope I don't regret it.
Run Lewis, run!!!!!!!!!
3/18/2007 10:15 PM
Anon 3/18 9:27: so, they aren't supposed to be public schools then, they are only supposed to care about the kids who aren't trying, and screw those who are? I am a tax-paying citizen of this city who sends my kids to the public schools because they are doing very well there, and because I don't want them in some parochial school where they learn to think the whole world looks, thinks and lives exactly like they do. Now I and other parents like me (I have a doctoral level degree, and know many other college educated parents whose kids are in the SLPS) face the possibility of our kids attending unaccredited schools and having our kids in school 42 1/2 hours a week, plus transportation time, because misguided politicians want to build their careers on the backs of my babies. Jeff Smith is sponsoring legislation right and left to make the public schools completely unpalatable to caring, educated parents. I will not be part of whatever plot there is to force those of us who wish to use the public schools to start supporting private ones. If my kids are going to be abused by politicians because, since the politicians can't fix the poverty and social problems facing many city families,the politicians instead attack the schools, then I'm leaving the city and taking my tax dollars with me. And my business as well--I will not patronize any city business if I continue to be treated as a second class citizen and am forced to leave my home because I support public education. My family is exactly the type of family the powers that be say they want to attract to the city--2 income, middle-class, responsible property owners--but they are doing everything they can to drive us out.
3/18/2007 10:57 PM
No the kids did not speak English.
Yeah that French Lizzy connection is making people regret Reed before he is even sworn in. Maybe we can get Ken Jones to recall him.
3/18/2007 10:57 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 11:08 PM
Oh no the sit in can't be over. Oh crazy Helen has not gotten there to pray over the children. Call her at once. Now this is is a real racist nut.
3/19/2007 12:07 AM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
3/19/2007 12:26 AM
Yeah take your business and move out of the city. We will blame it on the school district. Who cares we don't need you anyway. Take that short skirt piece of tramp Bourisaw with you and her four sick board members.
Thanks well give you some tickets to the zoo for helping. Call 345-2296
3/19/2007 12:32 AM
Yeah I hear the principals call Bourisaw trailer park trash.
3/19/2007 12:34 AM
Yeah she is trailer park alright she never shaves her legs
3/19/2007 1:07 AM
To anon who challenges the facts about the Confluence deal. The bonds were issued by the Industrial Development Authority of the city of St. Louis and underwritten by St. Louis-based Stifel Financial Corp. I don't see how this is private money, other than it is being underwritten by Stifel. Sounds pretty biased to me.
As far as Smith and Slay lining their pockets, please remember that Confluence has oversight by Edison Schools, which is a for profit company. The way they line their pockets is as share holders of the company. More expansion, means more money. Better results on tests, regardless of school location, more value in their stocks...Even if the test results are marginal gains at best.
Also, if what I said is mistruths and emotion as you say, why can't you address the conjecture and hearsay addressed in other posts. This is an emotional issue and the politicians and some adults are using the children for their gain. On the whole it is an emotional issue that will not be solved by certain legislation being proposed.
Address the root causes first. Poor leadership equals poor schools. Leadership comes in the form of governors, senators, representatives, mayors, alderman, the community, board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, and parents.
3/19/2007 8:58 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 9:51 AM
Anonymous said...
True or False?
03/18/2007
The adults who some in the media would have you believe 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 on several levels.
Instead, it was a lesson in cynicism, a textbook example of why the St. Louis Post Dispatch's editorial writers need to be replaced.
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 is the jerk who has been trying to engineer this takeover for a long time, and had no need to respond because it is practically a done deal.
Students tearfully told reporters that they had been told that loss of accreditation would result in their college scholarships and financial aid being rescinded.
Unclear.
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.
Have to take the trusted pd's word--don't know
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.
Not according to their own employee, Sylvester Brown, and Dr. Bourisaw.
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 has been the cynical power grab by two politicians with a history of ineptness regarding education, backed by a suspiciously compliant media.
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. Finally, there are school board members, administrators, union leaders and others who have been able to increase the daily attendance levels, and use fewer substitute teachers.
By lying to students and manipulating their emotions, the Post Dispatch has 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."
The Post Dispatch is the only source of truth, and you have to weed out some of our admittedly incompetent columnists to get it.
3/19/2007 1:27 PM
Bulldog Bob-
Yet again, your post contains mistruths. A sign that one's arguments hold little water is resorting to lies and distortions over the facts, which you clearly are doing.
Neither Slay nor Smith is a financial stakeholder in either Edison or Confluence, so neither's pockets will be "lined" by promoting charter schools. When you make such ridiculous claims, you should provide evidence. But of course, you have none.
And once again, this is NOT public money, this is PRIVATE money that is loaned by banks. It is the opposite of what you suggest.
Here's a diagram to make it easy for you:
PRIVATE MONEY-->BANKS-->PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS
3/19/2007 1:27 PM
To 10:57 anon
I am very happy that your children are doing well in their school. I wish that your children were more common in SLPS.
My understanding is that Jeff Smith and the like are not supporting vouchers, but rather the easing of the rules to get charter schools open.
I believe that the powers that be are trying to get and keep people like you (highly educated, middle class) in offering them school choice so parents with money/choices can have good free school options and still live in the city. That is not the perceived case today. Looking at the test scores, I don't think that is the case in reality for the non-magnet school. I don't think it is the case for the charter students either.
Many people with money/choices would rather stay out of the city than put their kids through the SLPS. Call them whatever you like (racist/classist), but until you get a bigger middle-class family base, it will be difficult to get higher test scores across the board. Wealthier kids, by and large, do better in school. They have more home resources, books and parents around, that make them excel in school.
To those who take exception to the above, please show me a DISTRICT with a majority of poor students in this country where students are doing really well. No one has figured out how to educated kids from a poor/'socially disorganized' environment to date.
Charter schools are an attempt to give parents a choice as to where to send their kids to school. They are not going super well in St. Louis (neither is SLPS). Will they get better? I don't know, but I do think that parents appreciate having the choice.
Free education, call it public or whatever, has got to get better if Saint Louis is going to grow its population and tax base. That is the objective of the powers that be. I look upon the SLPS like GM and Ford. Their quality can improve (can't tell is SLPS quality is improving even today), but the image is so ingrained in people as low grade, that it will take a long, long time to change people's minds. Saint Louis, as a city, doesn't have that long.
3/19/2007 5:32 PM
good news--there is a way to do it.
ny times
What It Takes to Make a Student
By PAUL TOUGH
Published: November 26, 2006
I got all nine pages by simply doing a search typing the title. A couple of quotes:
But the evidence is becoming difficult to ignore: when educators do succeed at educating poor minority students up to national standards of proficiency, they invariably use methods that are radically different and more intensive than those employed in most American public schools.
Levin and Feinberg adhered to a few basic principles: their mission was to educate low-income and minority students. They would emphasize measurable results. And they would promise to do whatever it took to help their students succeed. They offered an extended day and an extended year that provided KIPP students with about 60 percent more time in school than most public-school students. They set clear and strict
rules of conduct:
The message inherent in the success of their schools is that if poor students are going to catch up, they will require not the same education that middle-class children receive but one that is considerably better;
bad news---it might take 3 times the money now spent to do something like this. But you never know---the outstate republicans might decide it is necessary, and cut funds to the rural schools to do it.
3/19/2007 6:06 PM
anon 5:32
I appreciate your candid explanation of your support for charter schools. However, I do disagree with you. On the surface, it sounds like a good solution to the problem of giving stable families a choice for educating their children. Underneath, it leaves some holes you should think about.
Charter schools do not exist in a money vacuum. Resources to run them are drained away from the public schools along with stable children. This will lead to a woefully underfunded public system trying to serve the neediest children that no charter school will want to let in. What becomes of these children? There are many, many more than most would like to admit who would never "make the cut" to go to a charter.
Also, please remember that whatever school stable children are cocooned in, they will eventually graduate into and live in a city populated by all the disenfranchised young people you are trying to avoid now. Add to this the even greater lack of resources that will be there for those children and the city may be filled with even more angry, bitter young people than it is now.
There can be no golden road to public education for "desirable" children at the expense of the "undesirables". Ultimately, we are all in this together, and no chain is stronger than its weakest link. Building strong links around your children will not change the quality of the chain. When many links are ignored and broken, the dreams of society cannot hang well upon the generation to come.
In all due respect, you are being duped by those who see charter schools as an easy way to pacify stable voters like yourself. Perhaps they are duped themselves. Perhaps they even have come to believe their own press. But common sense says the children all grow up some day. How ALL of them grow up affects how ALL of them will live and survive. Think about it, please.
3/19/2007 9:04 PM
Anonymous said...3/18/2007 3:42 PM
I find it telling that no one in favor of the protestors has countered the P-D editorial on the facts. They caught Downs and others spreading what was, at best, misinformation. Where's a response to that on factual, not emotional, grounds?
The P-D is all about half-truths that are self-serving. The furor over the State takeover of SLPS has frequently focused on the all important accreditation score. Now, the P-D and the voices the editors speak for would have you believe that accreditation doesn't matter.
It's difficult for you and others who don't know that they don't know the truth and yet expect the P-D to give it to them.
If finding and examining the truth is uncomfortable, you'd better stay on the sidelines.
3/20/2007 8:49 AM
Anon. 3/19/2007 5:32 PM said,
I believe that the powers that be are trying to get and keep people like you (highly educated, middle class) in offering them school choice so parents with money/choices can have good free school options and still live in the city. That is not the perceived case today. Looking at the test scores, I don't think that is the case in reality for the non-magnet school. I don't think it is the case for the charter students either.
To those who take exception to the above, please show me a DISTRICT with a majority of poor students in this country where students are doing really well. No one has figured out how to educated kids from a poor/'socially disorganized' environment to date.
Charter schools are an attempt to give parents a choice as to where to send their kids to school.
If this is what you call a choice then there is an additional problem. The charter schools that have been reporting to the SLPS have not done better than most of their SLPS counterparts. There is NO evidence that charter schools anywhere in the country have done better than free public schools. What you'll have is "public" schools whose administration is not fully accountable to parents, students or anyone else.
Also, there has always been a choice in education. People make their choice by leaving the city for public schools in the burbs. I don't see people leaving the city for charter schools. Why would they stay for them?
3/20/2007 9:02 AM
To the last blogger, it is not odd that the academic performance of the charter schools are no better that SLPS, they are working with same population! About 80% of the kids in the charter schools are African-American and 100% are on free and reduced lunch.
We need to support education for all kids in the city, regardless of where they go to school and regardless of the family income!
3/20/2007 11:23 AM
Anon 3/19 5:32:
There IS (or WAS) an example of an urban education program that was successfully educating inner-city children. It was a nationally acclaimed program which people from all over the country came to study and replicate. It IS and soon to be WAS called the St. Louis Magnet Schools.
Unfortunately, the state has witheld court-mandated deseg money and underfunded them since the settlement agreement, Slay's board forced curriculum changes on them that diminished or eliminated their magnet specialty focuses, droves of white citizens bought into the lie of charters and put their children there instead, and as a consequence of all these poor decisions, magnet enrollment dropped to a point where the district has had to begin closing them down. I'm sure the state will finish the job.
A little support from Slay's former school board could have saved them. Instead, they killed them. Waring was the first nail. Then Madison. Now look at the list of proposed closures and see how many are magnet schools. Almost all of them. The few left still outscore everyone else.
3/20/2007 11:28 AM
We have cocooning now in the form of deseg and magnet schools. Metro, the shining star of the system, is a great school and an oasis for the bright students. Do we say that Metro should close because they don't admit everyone regardless of their academic achievement? Or the deseg students, are they siphoning money off of the other kids? Quite possibly, but we allow it because we feel it to be best for the student.
I would hope that charter schools could not cherry pick and the best and the brightest, ala Metro, and that they would be required to have some open enrollment. That should be a requirement of charter schools.
There is not a 'fixed pie' of resources. Rather than having stagnant resources in the city, new residents/businesses can add to the resource pie, paying more taxes/making more money available for needed services. How do we get new residents? Good, free education would help. The Metro model is not really replicatable in that it is for the really, really bright and most kids aren't really, really bright.
We all should be in it together, I agree. But now, we have a city where there are many, many 'high service' individuals like expensive to educate children and people who don't have health insurance who still need care. There aren't enough 'low service' people to adequately offset the others. Doing things like attracting empty nesters to downtown lofts is a reasonable way to do that. Not the only way, but a reasonable way.
It would be great if the region thought more regionally, but that isn't going to happen any time soon. Saint Louis City has to come up with its own path to provide for its citizens. Expanding the tax base, to me, is key if the city, and the city schools, are going to have a resurgence.
Thank you for your reasonable tone.
3/20/2007 11:31 AM
Anon 11:23 You've made the case against charters quite eloquently in your effort to defend them. If the charters are working with the same population of children as SLPS, how is it that they are doing SO MUCH WORSE?
It's not just a LITTLE worse either. Look at the DESE website and see for yourself what SLPS has done with, as you said, the SAME POPULATION as the charters.
It's NOT really the same population anyway. Charter students at least have parents who thought enough about their child's education to make the effort to enroll them there. It's a shame they didn't do their homework first. But SLPS has a population which includes parents who do not think enough of their child's education to even make sure their kids wear socks in the winter.
I'll say this for the charters, though, they have set themselves up a sweet deal. They get no penalties for not meeting AYP, but their abysmal test scores DO get lumped in with SLPS scores in determining district averages. So basically, what IS the incentive for charters to do well? If they do badly enough, they can bring the whole district down. Everyone knows what ZEROS can do to grades. Of course, when Confluence Academy showed up with ZERO percent of its students meeting AYP in 2004, they just reinterpreted it as a huge rate of INCREASE in 2005 when they got a 7.1.
DISHONOR AND DISHONESTY WILL CATCH UP WITH EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE END.
3/20/2007 1:37 PM
Charter School Effort Gets $65 Million Lift
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; Page A01
The charter school movement, begun 16 years ago as an alternative to struggling public schools, will today make its strongest claim on mainstream American education when a national group announces the most successful fundraising campaign in the movement's history -- $65 million to create 42 schools in Houston.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031902027.html?nav=rss_email/components
3/20/2007 7:50 PM
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