The New York Times recently published a piece by a non-St. Louisan which characterizes the evergreen problem of poor school performance as a racial issue. I take issue with the author being an out-of-towner because when you don’t live in the community the burden upon you to make sure your story about the community is well-researched and accurate increases. He failed to meet this challenge.
“When I saw them screaming and hollering like they were crazy, I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, this is back in Martin Luther King days,’ ” said Ms. Gladney, 45. “ ‘They’re going to get the hoses out. They’re going to be beating our kids and making sure they don’t get off the school bus.’ ”
Public schools here in the St. Louis region, as in many other metropolitan areas across the country, have struggled for decades to bridge a wide achievement gap between school districts — a divide that often runs along racial and socioeconomic lines.
Right off the bat the article excuses decades of mismanagement by educrats as a racial issue. Race has nothing to do with why these schools in a historically Democrat-controlled area ran by administrators who pay more lip service to teachers’s unions than parents.
But even with all of that — and more — the district is struggling. It has lost its academic accreditation. Its discipline problems are the worst of any district in the region. Many of the district’s 4,000 students are struggling. They come from 24 municipalities, a significant problem in and of itself. They are further beset with the troubles that engulf many urban neighborhoods — poverty, joblessness, homelessness and despair.
The above article referenced mentions that the “blame must stop.” No, accurate;y placed blame is required to fix the problem. One of those was the superintendent, who stepped down last year.
The State Board of Education informed the Normandy district on Sept. 18 that it needed to reverse years of poor student performance or face sanctions as severe as a state takeover, similar to those in St. Louis and Riverview Gardens. That ultimatum came as the state board voted to revoke Normandy’s accreditation.
A year ago, the state board decided to keep Normandy’s status as provisionally accredited and to give it more time to improve, saying it had confidence in the district’s leadership and would give the district extra help from the state’s education department.
But state education officials said in September that they could wait no longer. The day of the vote, Lawrence referred to the decision as “politically obscene.”
Normandy School Board member Herbert Clifton said Thursday he thought Lawrence’s departure was overdue and that the board was in need of great change.
Yes, it’s “politically obscene” that on this man’s watch these students suffered the blow of having their school’s accreditation revoked. Not sure what Lawrence did for his pricey six-figure salary, but his job performance didn’t reflect it.
In Missouri, students from failing, unaccredited schools can go elsewhere provided their parents provide the transportation. The Normandy School District will pay for this transportation. Parents of other districts have every right to be concerned about the impact an influx of students from a neighboring district will have on their school, just as it would be equally as valid if students were transferring into Normandy. Are the students caught up academically? Are there any students transferring whose behavior may cause disruptions? I reject the premise promoted by the author of the NYT piece that we should ignore the failing standards of Normandy, Riverview Gardens because the students are predominately black. Isn’t that alone a racial issue if race is being insisted upon as a factor? These districts could have used an NYT piece on their failing of students years ago, not on the deadline day of transfer application, not a piece which sweeps the real problems under the rug and instead attributes it to identity politics. Of course, Democrats allege “racism” when simply talking about failing standards in schools where any portion of the academic population is black, which makes honest discourse nearly impossible.
I live in the city. I don’t live in West County suburbia. Some of my friends and I live near or in the very districts this article discusses. Part of my family has lived in North County since WWII when the country women like my great-grandmother went to the factories. The problem with these districts are numerous and also include the breakdown of the family unit with no direction provided at home. Sending a kid to school for a few hours a day isn’t going to correct the established learning given to her or him through their home life. Unfortunately, the political leadership of this area cheerleads policies which obliterate the American family, economic opportunity, and after controlling this area for longer than even my parents have been alive, there is absolutely nothing to show for it aside from failing schools and failed kids. That’s what is shameful, that is the story, had it been written by someone with more devotion to truth than identity politics.
*UPDATE: The Missouri Torch has video of this discussion from my radio program today.
