Missouri Takes Over St. Louis Schools

The New York Times is reporting:

The Missouri State Board of Education voted on Thursday to take control of the troubled St. Louis public schools.

At an emotional meeting in Jefferson City that was interrupted by students who had arrived by bus from here to protest the expected decision, the board voted, 5 to 1, to strip the St. Louis Public School District of its accreditation, effective June 15.

The board also voted to provide for a transitional three-member panel appointed by state and local officials to run the city’s 93 public schools, many of which are old and run-down. The district’s seven-member school board will remain intact, but will have no governing authority.

The school has been in bad shape for years:

The St. Louis district, which has 35,000 students — many of whom are poor or homeless — has a history of financial, administrative and student achievement failures. Its cumulative debt in 2006 was almost $25 million, according to the State Board of Education, and it has had six superintendents since 2003.

The district’s 2006 graduation rate was roughly 55 percent, and the dropout rate nearly 19 percent, the state board said. More than 60 percent of 10th graders scored at a level "below basic" in math on state standardized tests last year.

And yet despite these poor conditions, which didn't just happen overnight, some of the St. Louis School Board members protested the move, saying it wasn't fair to the voters of St. Louis who had elected the board.

But a incomeptence is incompetence and just because the board was elected doesn't mean they know what they are doing. But parents have a legitimate concern about the state stripping accredidation.

Students who graduate this year will be unaffected by the district’s loss of accreditation, but it was far from clear how that would affect future graduates’ chances for college admission and scholarships.

"There’s been a lot of misinformation and anger about the potential harmful consequences for students," Mr. Morris said. "But that’s never been an issue to our knowledge."

But a sophomore at Soldan International Studies High School, Kaylan Holloway, was not convinced. "They say, ‘We believe lack of accreditation should not be a problem,’ but that’s not good enough," Mr. Holloway said. "We need to hear that it will not be a problem."