Inner City School Failures - Is It A Case Of Too Many Carrots?
ST LOUIS - The Turner v. Clayton and King-Willmann v. Webster Groves cases continue to wind their way through the court system. It is expected that the Turner case will wind up today in St Louis County Courts. The question the court is addressing is whether or not surrounding districts must allow children from unaccredited districts to enroll. Though this is a highly charged debate, nothing ground breaking will come out of these trials because this is the only question being addressed. The law seems pretty clear. The surrounding districts are looking primarily for some organized way to handle the transfer. The better question to be asked and answered is not going to be addressed; Why did the St. Louis City schools (and for that matter Kansas City too) fail?
Unless and until someone of character is willing to address that issue, all the fixes proposed in the recent legislation (annexation, transfers, charter schools, tax credits for private schools) will simply be band aids, and you know band aids don't stick for very long. How do we know the problem will persist? Senator Chappelle-Nadal (District 14) said, at the recent public education panel on the Turner Fix at Washington University, that
Unless and until someone of character is willing to address that issue, all the fixes proposed in the recent legislation (annexation, transfers, charter schools, tax credits for private schools) will simply be band aids, and you know band aids don't stick for very long. How do we know the problem will persist? Senator Chappelle-Nadal (District 14) said, at the recent public education panel on the Turner Fix at Washington University, that