Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for November 22, 2006 THE "SHOW ME" STATE

Suspends the superintendent's office of the St. Louis Public Schools! Decision pending on next step in state intervention...

The part of this article I found most interesting was the alleged "creativity" of the St. Louis Public Schools in "narrowing of the achievement gap" between black students and white students; namely, including ESL students with white students...thereby bringing down white students' scores! Can't you just see the competition among schools throughout the United States as they try to lure Eastern European immigrants into their Districts to meet the dictates of NCLB! Ony in America!

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch...

O'Brien asks for state to intervene in city schools

By Steve Giegerich
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

St. Louis School Board President Veronica O'Brien recommended on Monday a temporary suspension of the superintendent's office as part of a state intervention to save a district she described as "probably at (its) worst."

O'Brien stopped just short of calling for a state takeover during her 35-minute presentation before the State Advisory Committee at Harris-Stowe State University. The committee will deliver a report next month on the status of the St. Louis Public Schools to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The possibility that the state may seize control of the district hangs in the balance.

"The state needs to intervene in some way," O'Brien said. "This is a district that needs help and at the rate we're going, we're not going to get any better."

The committee is considering several options ranging from a full state takeover to a temporary district that would oversee the city's schools while it rectifies years of low academic performance, financial instability and turmoil on the School Board and in the district office.

O'Brien declined to say which alternative she preferred.

"She presented her thoughts very clearly," noted former Washington University Chancellor William Danforth, the committee co-chairman. He added that O'Brien didn't differentiate between a takeover and state intervention.

The School Board president reiterated her displeasure with Superintendent Diana Bourisaw. O'Brien's personally anointed successor, Bourisaw joined the district in July after her predecessor, Creg Williams, was pushed out by the School Board majority a little more than a year after he was hired.

Bourisaw is the sixth person to head the St. Louis schools since early 2002.

O'Brien said Monday that she was not pleased with a report the superintendent delivered last week to the State Board of Education. She told the advisory committee that she was particularly concerned about Bourisaw's contention that St. Louis was narrowing the minority achievement gap.

She told the committee that it was unclear whether English as Second Language students — including Latinos and the children of Eastern European immigrants — were lumped in with white students when the administration composed the achievement gap data.

The inclusion of ESL students would lower the average test scores of white students, O'Brien said, giving the illusion that the learning gap between whites and African-Americans was closing.

Tony Sanders, a schools spokesman, said after Monday's meeting that there was no connection between ESL and the achievement gap. All of the information supplied to the state came from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

O'Brien also criticized Bourisaw for de-emphasizing the dropout rate.

"At this rate we're going to have around 4,000 dropouts very soon, and that is a very, very serious issue. We must do everything we can to stop the dropout rate or we're not going anywhere," she said.

O'Brien was vague about the role the state should play in the district's immediate future.

A full state takeover, she predicted, would have disastrous results for both the city schools and neighboring districts, which would have to absorb an expected overflow of students from a restructuring of the St. Louis schools.

But O'Brien clearly favors a short-term solution with a district led by a chief operating officer and an academic officer.

The state, she said, "should build a team from inside to rebuild the system."

Until the district reaches financial, administrative and scholastic stability, she suggested that the team not include a superintendent.

"It is impossible," she said, "for a superintendent to function in a dysfunctional system."

Bourisaw, at loggerheads with O'Brien over personnel decisions as well as academic achievement and other issues, praised the School Board president for a measured and well-delivered presentation.

But she disagreed with the main thrust of O'Brien's argument.

"The district has a history of steady progress, and in 2003 it was heading toward accreditation," she said. "We need to fix the parts that are broken, align the teaching and curriculum with professional development and continue to put quality teaching and learning in place."

The advisory committee has scheduled meetings on Dec. 4 and Dec. 12 and is expected to deliver its report and recommendations to Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in mid-December.