[imc-st.louis] Draft Platform on St. Louis Schools & Education

[Don Fitz]

Draft Platform on St. Louis Schools & Education

Please come to the Gateway Green Alliance meeting 7 pm Wed Nov 19, 08 at 
3026 Cherokee [at Minnesota] when we will be discussing finalization of 
the draft platform on Schools & Education. There are still a few 
question marks in it that we need confirmation on.

*Green Party of St. Louis*

*Draft Platform on Schools & Education *

Recommended by the November 15, 2008 Elston K. McCowan for Mayor 
Campaign Meeting

[This is a draft and *not* the final platform, which will appear on the 
web.]

St. Louis should have a public school system it is proud of. But in 
2003, Mayor Francis Slay handpicked four candidates who spent over $? 
million (including their consultants) in their campaign to take over St. 
Louis Public Schools. Once in, they disrupted the new school year by 
closing schools, laying off school workers, eliminating transportation 
routes and providing children with food that was unfit to eat. They 
hired a management team which stayed in luxury hotels at taxpayer 
expense and were paid over $600 per hour to implement policies that 
drove down student test scores.


Outraged at what the Slay group was doing, St. Louis voters elected an 
increasing number of opposition candidates to the school board. After 
public school supporters became a majority in 2006 [2007?], Slay worked 
behind the scenes to have his own school district become unaccredited 
and create an appointed board that would usurp the right of voters to 
choose their own school board.

Francis Slay has worked to undermine public schools and replace them 
with charter schools. Charter schools are allowed to pick which students 
they accept, receive priority funding over public schools, are not 
required to report student attendance, are not required to certify 
teachers, produce students with lower test scores, and appear designed 
to destroy teachers’ unions.

St. Louis needs a new mayor who will do what is needed to remove 
decision making from the State Appointed Board and immediately return 
power to the elected board. The Mayor of St. Louis should:

· oppose any additional school closings;

· support a moratorium on any new charter schools;

· request that existing Charter Schools adhere to the same testing [be 
held to the same accountability standards?] as Public Schools;

· oppose school vouchers;

· help restore school transportation routes; and,

· oppose all outsourcing, including custodial work, grounds keeping, 
maintenance, security and food preparation.

Schools should be fully funded. St. Louis Public Schools are losing 
funds because of tax abatements and failure of the Former Attorney 
General, Jay Nixon to Desegregation Settlement Funds which recently 
totaled over $120 million. The School Board should release $19 million 
in retirement funds it is not giving to the pension board. [What date is 
this due?] The State Appointed Board must provide financial 
transparency, showing who received contracts, the various bids, and why 
these funds were spent.

We must protect student health. The Mayor and School Board should 
immediately investigate reports of lead contamination in schools. An 
unsafe school environment is a direct violation of the No Child Left 
Behind Act. Schools must have nutritious lunch and breakfast programs 
prepared in school cafeterias that offer fresh fruits and vegetables 
instead of prepackaged and junk food in vending machines.

Good education means:

· a maximum class size of 17 students;

· emphasis on early childhood education (starting at age 3);

· more magnet and vocational schools. [how many more?]; and

· the development of creative approaches to deal with disruptive behavior.

Schools must not be forced to “teach to tests” which ignore critical 
areas of education. The mayor must support efforts to:

· ensure that standardized tests take no more than one day per academic 
year (including time for preparations and strategies);

· have curricula that include social study topics of African-American 
history, civics and geography (so no student thinks that Africa is a 
country); and,

· prepare students to live environmentally in a post-petroleum world 
(such as offering cycling and vegetable gardening courses in every high 
school).

The next mayor should be supportive of efforts made by the publicly 
elected board of education, the district superintendent, principals, 
teachers and parents. Direct communication between the president of the 
elected board of education and the mayor is essential for demonstrating 
mutual respect and maintaining the dialog to seek what is best for the 
children of St. Louis. The mayor must recognize the legal separation of 
authority between the board of education and the city administration.