Posted on 02/26/2014 4:00:59 PM PST by Altura Ct.
It came as no surprise to Missouri education officials Tuesday night when the issue of race permeated the hearing on the state’s draft plan to address troubled schools.
The unaccredited Normandy School District — whose student body is nearly all African-American — will likely be the first to be affected by what the state adopts.
This reality brought out a range of emotion from Normandy parents, students and residents who filled most of an auditorium at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. While a handful lauded the department for proposing to do something different, most said the plan adds to Missouri’s history of inequity and racial discrimination in schools.
“If you look at the top DESE staff, none of them look like the 98 percent of the children we educate,” Normandy School Board member Terry Artis said into the microphone, referring to the racial makeup of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro and members of the Missouri Board of Education listened from the front row for nearly two hours as one speaker after the next responded to her proposal. The plan recommends layers of state intervention as schools and districts begin to slip — rather than waiting until they lose accreditation to take action.
Last summer, Nicastro set out to develop this plan with the unaccredited Kansas City school system in mind. But the transfer situation affecting the Normandy and Riverview Gardens school districts in the St. Louis area redirected her efforts to all struggling districts.
The goal of the proposal is to prevent any district from failing. But when a district does lose accreditation, the Missouri Board of Education could adopt one of several approaches, such as replacing the elected board with an alternative governing structure, or directly supervising the schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
A good example of why states shouldn’t be interfering with K-12 in the first place.
It the local school district is failing — it is up to the citizens in that district to fix it.
Can’t fix it. Teachers unions wouldn’t allow it.
While public schools whose student populations are almost entirely black are examples of failure it is to be noted that charter schools that have the same demographics are succeeding.
All this school needs is more money and a 98% black staff.
The Missouri Board Of Education has too many Americans who are white on it? Easily fixed. Get rid of it. Let the locals fix their own problems. That’s a part of education.
“If you look at the top DESE staff, none of them look like the 98 percent of the children we educate,” Normandy School Board member Terry Artis said into the microphone, referring to the racial makeup of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
So educating children is achieved by the color of a persons skin, not by the knowledge they possess?
You learn,
You will earn.
That's all that's needed.
Even the 98% black teachers would be a start. I taught in a mixed-race school in the South. A country school. Students were bussed. A bus could not leave the parking lot until all of the students on that bus were seated and facing forward. There was one black bus driver. She always left the parking lot first. Every child was seated and facing forward. The assistant principal said, “I don’t know what she does, but she is some effective!”
The best of our black teachers should be in our black schools. Then we’d see progress!
-- Cyndi Lauper
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.