And if it is “Broke”, Fix It!
A Guest Editorial by Jim Zavist
SLPS has a budget in excess of $350,000,000 (http://www.slps.org/budget/SummaryofFY07BUDG.htm). The school system is considering closing four more schools because “enrollment has dropped from about 44,000 to about 28,000 in six years.” (3-6-08 P-D, “SLPS board to consider closing four schools”) Let’s do the math – we’re now spending $12,500 per student per year to provide an inferior education! St. Louis is also home to ±64,200 children between the ages of 5 and 18 (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/29/29510.html). Let’s do the math again – we have ±36,000 children, or 56%, who are not utilizing the St. Louis Public School System.
School vouchers are the darling of many free-market conservatives. They believe that the public schools aren’t accountable, that they’re bloated bureaucracies, and that the only way to “right the ship” is to make them compete in a free-market environment. School vouchers are also a goal of many parochial school parents, as they face ever-increasing tuition costs. Until recently, I’ve believed that the public’s tax dollars should be used exclusively to fund public schools. I’ve also supported the concept of charter schools, where parents potentially have (the ability to have) more control over the education their children receive. But with the combination of a rapidly-shrinking enrollment, continuing upheaval in the governing structure, a loss of accreditation, no improvement in test scores and a continuing movement out of the city by families with school-age children, I’ve come to the conclusion that vouchers may be the only solution for public education in the city.
I know all the arguments about why many (but not all) SLPS students do not succeed – poverty, a lack of parental involvement, a lack of preschool, frequent moves, teen pregnancy, “school ain’t cool”, a lack of respect toward teachers/an inability to maintain order in the classroom, the impacts of main-streaming special-needs students, the impacts of busing, the closure of neighborhood schools, etc., etc., etc. . . . The reality is that many “solutions” have been tried, yet the results continue to speak for themselves. Yes, a minority of students are successful in this environment (graduating and going onto college and/or meaningful careers), but, on average, SLPS simply continues to “not meet expectations”. Combine all this with no reduction in spending, and we voters need to think seriously about some other options.
Bottom line, our spending, per student, has increased by 8%-10% per year, on average, for the last six years. At the same time, the number of students in the SLPS system is dropping by roughly 10% per year. At this rate, in ten years, SLPS will have fewer than 1,000 students! Assuming that, for better or worse, ¼ of the current budget is committed, more or less in perpetuity, to funding existing obligations (long-term debt, pensions, etc.), that still leaves in excess of $260,000,000 in annual revenues that, in theory, could be devoted to a 100% voucher program. If true, that could mean an annual payment of slightly more than $4,000 per student to every school-age child in the city.
Milwaukee has been on the forefront of pushing the use of vouchers. Much like St. Louis, they’re a rust belt city that wants to reinvent themselves. They also struggle with many of the same “challenges” SLPS struggles with. Their results appear to be mixed (see resources cited below), and, as with everything political and statistical, published results can and do get “spun” to reinforce one’s preconceptions. Personally, I fall into the camp of the non-parental taxpayer. I don’t have kids in the SLPS, never had and never will. My concerns fall into two distinct, fairly unemotional, areas – what am I paying and what am I receiving? Taxes are a necessary evil – they’re always more than I want to pay, but I realize that government can’t function without them, that they need revenues to deliver the services I use. Performance can, is, and has been measured. The results appear to be unacceptable, and as a result, the SLPS has become an increasing disincentive for any “resurgence” the city may attempt. I would prefer that we had a viable public educational system. We apparently don’t. So if vouchers can improve things, if for no other reason they enable families to migrate to the existing parochial schools and stay in the city, I say let’s give ’em a try – it can’t be much worse than what’s happening now and it would be a much more fair distribution of resources, especially when compared to the results delivered . . .
- http://www2.jsonline.com/news/choice/
- http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=721737
- http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0523/p01s03-usgn.html
- http://www.schoolchoices.org/roo/vouchers.htm
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58082-2004Sep28.html
- http://www.weac.org/Resource/vouchpg.htm
We are city homeowners and taxpayers. Taxes on our nice, single family home are approaching $3,000 per year. We have a high school aged child who has attended private schools in the city from K-9th grade. So far, we have paid almost $50,000 in tuition. And that’s with only one kid. We love the idea of a voucher. Good luck with your idea. What can we do to make it happen?
true, true. why are we supporting failure. i believe parents generally get the school district they demand and in slps’s case this is also true. give the kids and parents who want an exit the ability to. stop expropriating my taxes for a school system i can’t use. for the childless, a strong voucher educational system will allow the city to thrive.
i wish mr. sullivan well, but it is obvious he and slay are not communicating as evidenced by his being blindsided by slay’s endorsement of the new charters.
it appears first we need to get the state constitution amended and that chance my pass if the dems take the statehouse. not completely sure of the politics here given outstaters resentment of the city, catholics, etc. etc.
I just don’t understand what is going on with the SLPS. They say enrollment is dropping, they say that they need to close schools, but on the other hand I have herad that they had 3200 applications for 100 Pre-K magnet slots. From what I can tell they have completely done away w/ the Pre-K at Stix. When we toured there in the fall we were told then that they were looking for every kid they could get. And especially caucasian kids, which apparently was limiting their total enrollment due to required racial ratios. To date I have heard of only one child who has received acceptance into Pre-K, and that was at Kennard. And as a parent of a 4 year old, I hear a lot. And I’ve heard lots of parents wishing they could use the city’s magnet early childhood education system but being turned away.
I think I should edit my response to say that I believe, similar to when the outside management team took over, that the school district is dealing with probably dire financial concerns that are leading to decision on closures and the similar that are often not in the best interest of the students.
Both southsider and James make good points. What I’ll add to that is this: St. Louis has several traditions that undercut the possibility of having a top notch public school system. We do get the system parents demand, and we should keep in mind that many parents here would never consider public schools, not even in a good district. Some have religious reasons, others believe (right or wrong) that the standard system doesn’t work for their family. For those of you who are natives, this really is a cultural difference from most places in the country. In a sense, it is unfair that they pay property taxes for services they don’t use. (btw, it’s not as much as you think: Take a good look at your tax bills. Only about half of my City property tax bill went to pay for the SLPS–the rest goes to the ZMD, Parks, and the City. Additional revenues are provided through a sales tax.)
.
The unspoken problem with Jim’s proposal, in my view, is this: vouchers will only help those whose families can afford to make up the difference between the voucher and the tuition. There is approximately $5400 per child available to education our children. yes, this will cover most of the cost of parochial education–but what do non-Catholics do? (answer: get another job or move.) And what do we do about those children whose families can’t make up the difference? Whether we middle class folk like it or not, they do exist. I estimate we’d still have at least 2/3 of the current SLPS population to educate, and less than half the resources to do the work.
.
I’m not saying that the performance is satisfactory–except for magnet schools, its not. It seems pretty clear that charter schools share the same issues, since their performance is about the same. I have ideas and thoughts on the how to make things work but comments are not the forum.
.
The real question we’re asking here is, does society have an interest in making sure that all children have an adequate education, or should that be solely the responsibility of the parents?
LisaS: Whether society has an interest in making sure all children have an adequate education is NOT the real question. The real question is, is the current public school system the only legitimate means of satisfying that interest?
.
It is my observation that, in the case of the SLPS, the clear answer to that question is no. As adults argue about theories and philosophies, children are prepared for a future of failure by schools that are ill equipped to educate them. And the city as a whole pays a price, as those who have children and can’t afford parochial school choose to live elsewhere.
.
Another question worth asking, in the current context, is this: Can any school system, even with unlimited resources, obtain satisfactory educational outcomes with the children in the SLPS? If it turns out that an uneducated, uninvolved, unmarried mother, unstable home situation, and extreme poverty, make it extremely unlikely that good outcomes can be obtained – then what? If the answer to this question is no, then the only good thing to come of vouchers will be that the few kids who are able to succeed will have the ability to get into a school where they are not hindered by the failing masses.
My daughter attends a start up charter school. I am all for charter schools. I am all for small schools. The reasons why SLPS are broke and broken are so many, it’s a hole with no bottom. I taught at Patrick Henry for one year, my first year, and it was shocking what passed for education. It was so bad, I swore my children would never attend, even if it meant we had to move. Homeschooling was an option for me, but when this charter school presented itself, I went for it.
The most distressing thing, though, is that the parents who have it together will try everything to get their children into better situations, through voluntary deseg, scholarships, financial aid, charter schools. The year I taught, I helped 4 moms fill out voluntary deseg paperwork to help their kids out. When Mom is functionally illiterate and there isn’t a first grade teacher essentially filling out all the information, though, those kids are stuck.
56% is a staggering number. I wonder how much bigger it has to get before it all crumbles and what we’re left with is a small school district and a bunch of for-profit school management companies (which I am deeply suspicious of–I heartily support grass roots charter school movements, however).
Nick–good question. At our little school, there are several families who struggle day to day to stay afloat. But it isn’t a room filled with children from those families. When you are in a school nearby your home (as opposed to voluntary deseg, for instance), when the teachers and principal know your name and your child’s name, when the school atmosphere is such that it is more than just a place to put your kid for 8 hours a day, I think it does make a difference. Whole schools of children living below the poverty line isn’t going to help anyone, I don’ think. But when poverty is spread out so that others can share that burden (meaning the extras that every classroom, private or public, wants–volunteers, unique programs, etc), you get a richer school experience. It’s the same theory of spreading out public housing instead of putting all of it in high rise pressure cookers.
I have so much to say about this. But I have a sick 3 year old who needs attention!
Bridgett – Unfortunately, because of the structure of American residential areas, poverty can’t help but be concentrated. Even if we wanted to build low-income housing in affluent suburbs, even if we could afford the land, even if transit and social services were available in Frontenac, the municipal zoning and building codes would never allow it. We’ve tried to solve that problem here with deseg, but when I lived in Parkway many years ago, they separated the test scores of the deseg students, and there was a huge performance gap. What I don’t know is whether deseg students perform better than similarly situated students who attend the SLPS. Of course, you could very well argue that the mere fact that they are enrolled in the deseg program means they are not similarly situated. But that’s a whole ‘nutter discussion.
.
Bottom line, though, is that the SLPS is always going to be a school district whose students are primarily poor black kids. For the most part, that’s even the case where we live, in Ferguson. In fact, my neighborhood elementary school – which serves one neighborhood that is almost entirely white, and the next one over which is mostly black – has gone from 55% black-45% white in 2003, to 70/30 in 2007. And we all know where the white kids went.
I want to address the concern that in a voucher system, parents who don’t want to send their kids to parochial schools would be left in the lurch, having to make up the difference between the value of the voucher and the cost of private schools.
The answer is that the market’s demand for affordable private education would lead to the opening of more private schools with reasonable tuition.
George McGovern writes: “I’ve come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society. The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else.”
– –
Welcome to the real St Louis JZ where tradition dictates that more government is the answer…accountability and insight are conveniently dismissed by the general public. Of course you’re being ripped off. Paying taxes for a failed school system is perfectly consistent with paying too much for a poorly designed New 64, Metro Extension, etc,…is it clear yet? If even the obvious problems can’t be fixed, then what about the ones you can’t see?
– –
The StL cheerleaders will come running to agree that changes are needed while simultaneously defending the status quo…tweak the current failed system. If history is any guide, then the “accept it or leave it” alternative is your only choice…and so goes a civil society.
Nick you’re right about many neighborhoods in the city. Maybe my daughter’s school is a rare exception–its areas are Botanical Heights, FPSE, Shaw, Tiffany…. (actually, it almost certainly is the exception, which makes it a tad utopian…I really think in many ways it could be a model for success, but…we know how success sells here…)
and then there’s “creative” problem solving . . . from toady’s Denver Post:
“Teachers turn tables on disinterested students
“Teachers at the Jefferson County Open School turned the tables on their students today, locking classroom doors and going outside and playing music and cards.
“The faculty of the school, 7655 W. 10th Ave., Lakewood, took the action following an increasing lack of participation and engagement by the students attending the school, said Melissa Reeves, spokesperson for the Jefferson County Public Schools.
“Reeves said some students were not attending class when the school bell rang. And others would listen to music or play cards in the classroom while class was in session.
“Frequent trips to a nearby convenience store, which involved skipping out on classes, were also a problem, said Reeves.
“As a result, the teachers decided to mimic the students and do some role playing, she said.
“The result late this morning was an hour-long, faculty-student assembly in which issues were hashed out and the students ended up apologizing to the school’s faculty, said Reeves.
“Earlier, one student had called The Denver Post and said the teachers had gone out on strike.
“Reeves said that was not the case.
“There are 33 teachers and 550 students at the school.”
“At this rate, in ten years, SLPS will have fewer than 1,000 students!” – I think you’ll find that’s music to some people’s ears.
You spared the teacher’s union some scrutiny along with the salaries of school administrators. That 12.5k a student is no bargain. It’s my firm belief that Bush’s “no child left behind” was a sucker punch of the union and really should be called, “no child gets ahead.” Most parents realize this and are adjusting accordingly.
Your point Jim is that you’d like to see some population growth in the city and have it be families and you think vouchers could help? Well you are correct but you can guess who your strongest opponents would be. If enrollment were to drop to 1000 students, I’m assuming it would be all special needs.
How can charter schools and vouchers possibly be the “answer” to a so called “broken” system? I’d say, if there was any “system” at all, (SLPS) it would be under attack by the rich, snobbish, and vindictive elites in the area, which by the way, it is! Public schools across the nation are the victims of a slanderous mud slinging contest designed to make charter schools and school vouchers look like the “answer”. Charter schools thieve public money away from public schools, and give them to corporations, out of state conglomerates, or both. They are explicitly de-regulated to provide their oversight boards leeway to spend, again, PUBLIC, TAXPAYER, dollars in any way they see fit. How can one possibly trust such beings with the education of one’s children? On the other hand, public schools are held to comparatively strict accountability. There is the MAP, “Missouri Assessment Program” for public schools, yet, no kind of standardized test exists for charters to hold them to any kind of comparative academic accountability, even though they make use of the same public funds! Their primary motive is to make money! How else could they possibly exist? Vouchers offer up vast amounts of PUBLIC, TAXPAYER, dollars to lavishly expensive private schools.
Additionally, Craig, one of the principals of the free market is that there will always be losers. How can one morally apply that same principle to education?
Not sure what is going on with Stix, but my 3 year old was just accepted this week.
keep the buildings and students, flush everything else down the loo, and start over
The elected (parent controlled) board was getting into turning things around, fast, but the mayor didn’t like that, and so pressed for the state takeover. Now it’s more of the same, cronyism and planned failure. They’ve (the SAB) already shown their hypocrisy by cutting Bourisaw loose. It shows they have no interest in stability.
Man, you’re up early James….
Touche, brotha!. It’s the weekend, got nothing to do but rant.
I didn’t think you had internet service at home… without confidence that the city can, in fact, restore most of its non-downtown residential population I’m not sure any approach can hope to remedy the SLPS situation.
“without confidence that the city can, in fact, restore most of its non-downtown residential population I’m not sure any approach can hope to remedy the SLPS situation.”
That, there has been one of the very roots of the problem for years. People flight, not just white, but black, middle class, and educated has left the city with a declining tax base, and zing!, less and less money for adequate school funding of any kind, be it public, charter, voucher, etc.
James wrote: Additionally, Craig, one of the principals of the free market is that there will always be losers. How can one morally apply that same principle to education?
.
Uh … James, we already do. The losers are the ones going to the SLPS. And Riverview Gardens, must not forget them. It’s as simple as that.
.
James wrote: People flight, not just white, but black, middle class, and educated has left the city with a declining tax base, and zing!, less and less money for adequate school funding of any kind, be it public, charter, voucher, etc.
.
Well, you’re half right. Any black person with the resources to do so, and who feels the pull of good schools and safe neighborhoods more strongly than the pull of his northside neighborhood roots, moves out. But you are wrong to say that they are getting less and less money: Between 2003 and 2007, per student revenue went from $11,500 to $13,700, an increase of 19%. In comparison, Parkway went from $8,200 to $9,500, an increase of less than 16%, on a significantly lower base. Rural districts didn’t do any better – Farmington went from $6,400 to $7,350, an increase of less than 15%. So adequate funding certainly isn’t the problem.
.
One big difference is this: Farmington had one administrator for every 174 students in 2003, decreasing to one administrator for every 217 students in 2007. Parkway went from one to 198 in 2003, to one to 236 in 2007. The city, meanwhile, was going in the opposite direction, from one administrator to 219 students in 2003, to one administrator per 170 students in 2007.
“Uh … James, we already do. The losers are the ones going to the SLPS. And Riverview Gardens, must not forget them. It’s as simple as that.”
Then why are we allowing there to be losers in the first place? In a free-choice system, there will always be better, and there will always be worse. We can debate about which one is which till the cows come home. But, why do we allow there to be the possibility of losers? Should we simply abandon those who are left behind? (The SLPS has many gems in it’s system (Metro, Gateway, McKinley, Stix, Mullanphy, Kennard are all excellent schools, yet are trashed the same), one should look closer before they condemn them). I’d say, get behind public schools, and force meaningful improvements, so that we may all be better in the long run.
And there ARE problems with funding. How can one expect anything less when the price of gas, which powers buses, heating air conditioning, electricity, etc, keeps going up and up? And there is the problem of expected funds which never showed up. The State was obligated to pay SLPS multi-thousands of dollars due to the deseg settlement, but never did! And, vouchers, charters, etc, take ever increasing amounts of money from SLPS’ own pocketbook. They are forced to raise taxes simply to stay in one place, yet can never having enough to move forward. I’d say, yes, there is some waste, but that is to be expected from any system, public, private, or charter. Ever heard of the Texas CAN! Academy on Goodfellow? (One hellhole of a charter). But it certainly isn’t the massive conspiracy of waste some would like you to believe.
Nick, I think the point is that we really need to see the repopulation of the city, including the neighborhoods of the north that have suffered such decimation, before any instituted system can hope to work. Expand your point on this statement a bit further:
“Unfortunately, because of the structure of American residential areas, poverty can’t help but be concentrated.”
James –
.
1. We aren’t “allowing there to be losers.” Rather, the resident parents have been unable and/or unwilling to overcome the powerful control the SLPS bureaucracy has had over the district, and those living outside the district have had no control at all. The state takeover, which the district itself opposed in every way possible, holds hope to be a meaningful intervention that could turn things around.
.
2. I have demonstrated that the SLPS gets more per student than most other districts, and has increased its per student budget at a faster rate than most other districts. So there isn’t a funding problem, there’s a spending problem.
.
john w. – What I mean by “because of the structure of American residential areas, poverty can’t help but be concentrated” is this: The vast majority of residential areas have restrictions on what can be built, whether through explicit building size requirements, subjective permitting processes that keep out affordable housing, land that is too expensive to accommodate affordable housing, or some combination thereof. So poor people end up in one of three places: inner city neighborhoods, inner-ring suburbs with “obsolete” housing stock, and trailer parks. This problem is made worse by the fact that poor people are much more dependent on public transportation, which can’t provide cost-effective service to sparsely populated suburbs.
.
Back in the days when I hosted a talk show, I suggested that we should build a hi-rise low income housing complex in Frontenac. There are plenty of parcels of land which are large enough, and it would give the very wealthy a new appreciation for the poor. It was as much a joke as anything else, but the absurdity of that proposition illustrated exactly what I said here.
1. The resident parents have been unable, but certainly NOT unwilling, to attempt change in the SLPS. It was the election of TWO very outspoken parents to the school board (and subsequent ejection of the mayor’s mis-managing pawns) that prompted Slay to press hard for a state takeover, prompting yet MORE bureaucracy. The parents have done everything thing within the law to try to change things. However, unfortunately, the city and state often do not respect the wishes of the people.
2. Why should people living outside the district have any control over it? They live OUTSIDE the district! Would we want to have, say, Argentina getting electoral votes in presidential elections?
I do appreciate your idea for the hi-rise Frontenac tower, though 🙂
Nick,
your remarks only reflect the willingness of those who see land values as transferrable to some profit margin only. There are no prohibitive clauses or restrictive covenants anywhere, at least not legally or constituionally, that in any way preclude the building of affordable housing units along with market rate housing. In fact, there are project development funding mechanisms available to build market rate units along with a stipulated number of affordable units. The inability of public transit to effeciently serve sprawled suburban areas, for all the reasons we know well, is a result of the patterns of bad land development fed by the free market. Reversing the effects of these bad patterns will require the willingness of both political leadership and the powers that shape our land in this free market, but to date the commitment has clearly not been there. NIMBYism and other impediments to perceived problems with affordable housing could be largely mitigated by the willingness of political leaders and the powers that shape to make it happen. The activity in the Old North St. Louis neighborhood shows not only what is possible, but also that the concentration of poverty as a result of the structure of American residential areas is not an absolute.
SLPS is a mess, no doubt. My next door neighbor with two young children (getting near school age) sold their house two weeks ago and are moving to a good school district in the county (as the father told me). We are in Tower Grove South near Grand and Gravois.
The school system is a real problem, under performance by students is a real problem also. I had a friend who taught one year in SLPS and said that out of a class of around 30, he had maybe a half dozen that wanted to learn, the rest just hung out.
Not a good thing. It is parents yes, but also the environment, jobs, or the lack of them and many other problems in society. The recent Pew report on prison shows the United States leads a combined total of 36 other European Countries in prison population. The US has a prison population of 2.2 million against around 900,000 for the other 36 countries including the draconian Russia. The population of the 36 countries is 800 million, the US is 300 million. TV news(Brian Williams et al) tried to explain it away due to tougher sentencing, but that is a bullshit argument that once again fails to address the real problems of this country. The beloved capitalistic system is a failure due to abuse from the upper classes. Factory jobs have been sent overseas. They were the stepping stone jobs used by our forefathers to advance their lives. Globalization policies are the ultimate racist actions initiated by Congress and the President.
Globalization is necessary and good to an extent, but it should be remembered that when worker salaries across the globe are similar in 50 or 100 years industry will locate near where the delivery of goods is located. (This may occur sooner because of energy costs). Thus Globalization is merely a means for mega capitalists to steal more resources from the world economy on the backs of the poor world wide.
Until there is an understanding that what is happening in St. Louis is happening all over America and is the result of many, many bankrupt policies followed by Republicans and Democrats alike, no one will ever solve the problems of St. Louis schools, not Blunt, nor Slay, nor Clay nor anyone else. Not as long as it is business as usual in the back rooms of government.
The proof is the out of control prison population. It is clear proof America is totally mismanaged. Or lets say managed for the benefit for a few insiders. Everyone sees this corruption at the local level as well as the national level, its not like it is a secret.
Small scale capitalism works, but when corporate powers buy, or in fact own, the government, policies no longer reflect the needs of the people. You end up with failing school systems and social disintegration. It is difficult to solve problems by citing per student costs or the need for charter schools in this situation. And in fact for profit schools are merely more profit taking by government insiders who run everything for their personal benefit in the first place.
Forget the usual platitudes about concerns for children. If there was real concern for children there would be universal health care for the children and the parents that care for them, there would be decent, living wage jobs available to all who are willing to work, there would be a comprehensive mass transit system to support the network of children caregivers, there would be major investment in downgraded environments to make them comfortable and livable for all children and their families, in short it would be a much different society than we live in now. Then SLPS would be a good school system.
Quick correction it is 1.8 million prison population for 36 European countries including Russia (total population 800 million) vs 2.2 million total prison population for the US (total population 300 million).
Hey GMichaud why didn’t you try to persuade your neighbor to stay and take a stand verse failed capitalists? Tell him he should put his kid’s health, future, safety in harm’s way to further your and Jame’s utopian society. I’m guessing you didn’t win him over. You and james must be drinking the same flavor cool-aid. For our prison population, a solution not often discussed, deportation. Russia I heard was giving people the day off to go home and have kids. Heck, we could just give some full grown adults. Everyone should be pleased including you because they wouldn’t have to be part of the failed capitalist society. Your talking points scare me on your value of human life. They describe governing bodies that will nonchalantly come along and manage all concerns no matter where kids come from instead of two uncomprising 24/7 standing guards devoted to a child’s will being often dubbed Mom and Dad, willing to trade the shirt from their back to give them every unfair advantage in life, and very much concerned where kids came from at minute 1 of their life.
HUH
Repopulate the city, dammit!
Dude, if you were coherent I might be able to respond.
Dude prefers dystopia to utopia.
john w. wrote: your remarks only reflect the willingness of those who see land values as transferrable to some profit margin only. There are no prohibitive clauses or restrictive covenants anywhere, at least not legally or constituionally, that in any way preclude the building of affordable housing units along with market rate housing.
The City of Frontenac, with the exception commercial districts and one “slummy” nabe in the northeast corner of the city, is zoned for one residential unit per acre. In the past three years, the least expensive home sold in Frontenac was a 960 square foot 2 bedroom house on a 5000 square foot lot (which, by the way, is non-conforming under their current zoning code, which requires 7,500 square foot lots in the “slummy” nabe) for $157,000. The next one up from there was a 1,400 square foot 3 bedroom home, on a 7,500 square foot lot, for $264,000. There were only 8 houses in the city of Frontenac which sold for $350,000 or less in the last 3 years.
.
In fact, there are project development funding mechanisms available to build market rate units along with a stipulated number of affordable units.
.
Sure, you can get funding. But you can’t ignore local zoning codes. Affordable housing can’t be built in Frontenac. And there are plenty of other places where that is equally true, they just don’t have their zoning map online.
.
The inability of public transit to effeciently serve sprawled suburban areas, for all the reasons we know well, is a result of the patterns of bad land development fed by the free market. Reversing the effects of these bad patterns will require the willingness of both political leadership and the powers that shape our land in this free market, but to date the commitment has clearly not been there.
.
Wrong again. Reversing the effects of these bad patterns will require bulldozing the entire city of St. Peters, half the city of St. Charles, all of west county south of Olive and outside of 270, and so on ad infinitum. You can’t provide transit service to people who live a mile into a subdivision. No amount of “political leadership” or “commitment” can change that fact. Indeed, it is foolish “leadership” pushing Metro to expand services to these areas, which has resulted in an unending financial crisis for our transit system.
.
NIMBYism and other impediments to perceived problems with affordable housing could be largely mitigated by the willingness of political leaders and the powers that shape to make it happen.
.
How exactly is that? I suppose if we dissolved all the municipalities, merged the city and county, and put all planning and zoning under the control of the City of St. Louis, that MIGHT make it happen. And if it did, you’d end up with situations like those houses at Lindell and DeBalivier, which are blemishes on an otherwise incredible street.
.
The activity in the Old North St. Louis neighborhood shows not only what is possible, but also that the concentration of poverty as a result of the structure of American residential areas is not an absolute.
.
ONSL is special, in a lot of ways. I say this as somebody who knows many of the major players, present and past, in ONSL development. I have much respect for these people, and am amazed at what they have accomplished there. But the vast majority of people, including myself, don’t want to purchase a $200,000 home in the middle of a slum, surrounded by board-ups, halfway houses, and vacant lots, even if it is two blocks from Crown Candy. Lest you be misled by this comment, I hasten to add that I live in Ferguson, not St. Peters. Ferguson is a walkable community that is probably more diverse than any other in St. Louis, it has historical homes comparable to Webster, and lots of affordable housing, of which I am proud to own several units myself.
.
To me, ONSL is a great place to go for ice cream, in broad daylight. The folks I know who live there are wonderful people, but I will confess to believing that they have a screw loose, or perhaps several. Even John Burse.
Ferguson is a dump is in it’s own right. Nick you should get real and accept that any problems on north 14th street or North St. Louis are yours too. The failures of the Ferguson, Berkley area are too numerous to mention and are only a step away from the areas you so look down on. Ferguson is a great place to go in broad daylight.
By the way Ferguson is not more diverse than than any area in St. Louis, not even close. You should try moving out of your shell. I don’t see the diversity that I see in St. Louis proper, not even close. That makes your statements marginal at best, please try again. I have rehabbed many buildings in North County and the Ferguson area and know the area well.
To pretend you are in a situation that is better than everywhere else is not only wrong, but truly absurd. Once you admit the problems in Ferguson are similar to the problems in the city, it may be possible to solve them. Pretending you are in suburban utopia is why the bullshit of America presides over our life.
“In the past three years, the least expensive home sold in Frontenac was a 960 square foot 2 bedroom house on a 5000 square foot lot (which, by the way, is non-conforming under their current zoning code, which requires 7,500 square foot lots in the “slummy†nabe) for $157,000.”
$157,000 is what is called “affordable housing”?
“But you can’t ignore local zoning codes.”
“(which, by the way, is non-conforming under their current zoning code, which requires 7,500 square foot lots in the “slummy†nabe)”
I thought you couldn’t ignore local building codes? Or was said house build before their enactment?
“The folks I know who live there are wonderful people, but I will confess to believing that they have a screw loose, or perhaps several.”
I share your thoughts, but for people in west county, not Old North.
GMichaud wrote: Ferguson is a dump is in it’s own right. Nick you should get real and accept that any problems on north 14th street or North St. Louis are yours too. The failures of the Ferguson, Berkley area are too numerous to mention and are only a step away from the areas you so look down on. Ferguson is a great place to go in broad daylight.
.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. While there is certainly more crime in Ferguson than there is in O’Fallon, I’ve been here for 2 1/2 years, and there hasn’t been a single murder yet. Ferguson has its own police department, which has done an excellent job of pushing back the garbage that spills over from unincorporated to the east, and from Berkley. Southwest Ferguson is a problem, stemming from its proximity to Kinloch, but the Northpark development will turn that around in the next decade. Otherwise, there isn’t a street in Ferguson where I’d be unwilling to live.
.
By the way Ferguson is not more diverse than than any area in St. Louis, not even close. You should try moving out of your shell. I don’t see the diversity that I see in St. Louis proper, not even close. That makes your statements marginal at best, please try again.
.
Wrong again, Mr. Michaud. According to the 2000 census, Ferguson is 56% white, 41% black, and includes 12.5% Latinos. That is diverse. The zip code of ONSL, 63106, is 94.8% black, 3.6% white, and less than 1% Latino. So racially, Ferguson is diverse, and ONSL isn’t. What about income? In Ferguson, we have between 6 1/2 and 10% of our households in each of the bottom 12 income classifications, from below $10,000 through $75,000-$99,000. In ONSL, on the other hand, nearly 49% of households earn less than $10,000, and more than 3/4 of households earn less than $25,000 a year. So Ferguson has diversity of income, while ONSL does not. So, we’ve established that Ferguson is indeed more diverse than ONSL.
.
The only place I can think of in St. Louis county that might approach Ferguson’s diversity is University City. But while 63130 may be diverse, there are clear lines of division that don’t exist in Ferguson. My home is two blocks from 5,000 square foot mansions on enormous lots, and two blocks from 800 square foot rental homes.
.
I have rehabbed many buildings in North County and the Ferguson area and know the area well.
To pretend you are in a situation that is better than everywhere else is not only wrong, but truly absurd. Once you admit the problems in Ferguson are similar to the problems in the city, it may be possible to solve them. Pretending you are in suburban utopia is why the bullshit of America presides over our life.
.
You obviously don’t know the area as well as you claim. And clearly I believe my situation is better than everywhere else for me – that’s why I choose to live here.
.
You can assert that “the problems in Ferguson are similar to the problems in the city” but saying it doesn’t make it so. In the 2 1/2 years I’ve lived here, nobody has been murdered in Ferguson. There have been 25 murders in the city since January 1. That alone is a big enough difference that I can honestly say, we aren’t even in the same league.
.
But Ferguson isn’t “suburban utopia” and I’ve never said it was. Indeed, I don’t think suburban can ever be utopia. We moved to Ferguson because it is a diverse, affordable, urban and walkable community. It is a place where black and white, rich and poor, professional and blue collar, we shop in the same shops, eat in the same restaurants, play in the same parks. At times, we irritate each other because we are all different. But we get along, we respect each other, and we have a community that works for everyone who lives here. If that is “the bullshit of America” then you can give me a whole pasture full of it.
GMichaud wrote “The beloved capitalistic system is a failure due to abuse from the upper classes.”
If this is the back bone of a lot of your talking points, it’s no wonder a lot of them will be wrong. Capitalism has been a smashing success. You do realize people run accross our Mexican border in the dark to participate in it? The original point of the thread was to use vouchers to get families to move into the city due to the SLPS. Calling someone else’s community a dump isn’t very polite by the way.
“You do realize people run accross our Mexican border in the dark to participate in it?”
I thought people ran across to get away from it?
“Calling someone else’s community a dump isn’t very polite by the way.”
Tell that to people who think the same of Old North!
I can’t speak for anybody else, but I never said ONSL was a dump. I presume the offending sentence in my post was this one: But the vast majority of people, including myself, don’t want to purchase a $200,000 home in the middle of a slum, surrounded by board-ups, halfway houses, and vacant lots, even if it is two blocks from Crown Candy. I will further presume that the offending word in that sentence was slum, since everything else in there is visibly and objectively true. So, in defense of the word slum, I offer the definition from dictionary.com: “A heavily populated urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor.” I will concede that the word is inappropriate at this point, only because ONSL is no longer heavily populated.
I have no argument with those who choose to live in ONSL. I would even say that the perception of danger in living there far exceeds the reality, as it does in most urban areas. But that still doesn’t take away from the fact that it is absolutely ridiculous to compare ONSL to Ferguson. Ferguson is not, by any definition except that of the most bigoted resident of the most homogeneous suburb, a dump. Nor is it, for that matter, a slum.
Mr. Michaud only shows his ignorance when he says, “I don’t see the diversity that I see in St. Louis proper, not even close.” While St. Louis, as a whole, is about 50-50 racially, we all know that the city is spatially quite segregated. That simply isn’t the case in Ferguson. We wouldn’t say that St. Louis county is “diverse” just because it includes both Wellston and Chesterfield, but in Mr. Michaud’s world, that qualifies as diversity. I live in a 2,350 square foot home on nearly 1/2 acre. Across the street and 2 doors to the right, 980 square feet and 2 bedrooms, with a house payment that ought to be about $450 according to the tax records.
Nick, like you just said, you can’t speak for anyone else, and thank goodness for that.
Nick,
You are correct about Ferguson being diverse both racially and income groups, walkable, and safe. As a fellow north county (really northwest, but it gets grouped the same), I am tired of the perceptions that depict an inaccurate view of our communities. They are safe, increasing in diversity, and remaining stable. North County is the true representation of America’s future with its progress in integration, a very young and new movement. Our school districts are quickly changing and addressing the issues in education. Minorities and lower income people are succeeding in these districts alongside the traditional white & middle class demographic.
Of course, I would like to see more places resemble the drastic change occuring in ONSL, but the momentum is not their yet for widescale transformation. ONSL is putting down the inital roots for this momentum to build off of. Many of the areas of north St. Louis no longer the filled in and established mini-cities they once were. Such a lack of political development (parks, schools, transit, sewers, streets, neighborhood organizations, social organizations, churches, etc) and economic development (mix of residential, retail, jobs, level of intensity and built-up) keeps people from moving there. When more of these things are in place, these neighborhoods may too draw population and affluence.
The main discussion was not Ferguson or ONSL, but SLPS. The district will have to wither these times just as they lived through past eras. None of us remember of lived during the age when the city was largely immigrant. How does today’s educational level compare to then, where a district had to teach english to dozens of children speaking every language. The quality of the schools has gone a long way from then, and the national experiment in educating low income students is constantly being experimented with. A charter school will be opening in NYC in 2009 according to the NY Times the other day, and it will educate largely poor hispanics by teachers being paid $125,000 salary! Obviously, this is a difficult issue to tackle and so many things have been tried that we might as well try everything because there are students who do make it out of the statistics that are accepted as the norm for their group. I may not be one of them being white, middle class, and suburban educated; but while I was at my suburban school I saw those low income people rise out of those “norms” and advance at similar levels. Let us open our eyes to more of those students who advance out of these “norms” that define the group.
Keep in mind, there are many who succeed years later when they are more mature and able to consider education socially acceptable and to their benefit.
SMSPlantsu – You are right that the SLPS has faced serious, if different, challenges in the past. One of the things which makes today’s challenge different, and more difficult, is that we have much higher expectations for educational outcomes than we did a century ago. In 1900, the overall illiteracy rate was over 10%, and the black illiteracy rate was nearly 45%. Today, we expect every child to graduate high school, with a broad range of skills and knowledge, and for many of them to continue to college. With increased standards comes an increased opportunity for failure. This is, of course, no excuse for the great disparity between the SLPS and, say, Parkway. But in fact, it is likely that children in the SLPS may be learning just as much as they did a century ago, albeit at a much greater cost.
.
Of course, there is a reason we have higher educational expectations today: survival. If an SLPS student attends through the 10th grade and drops out, he isn’t headed for a job in the garment district and a stable, if hard, life, he’s headed for trouble. Even with a high school diploma and decent grades, opportunities are limited. The ultimate problem with the SLPS isn’t low MAP scores, it’s a greatly increased probability of a lifetime of teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and poverty for students who aren’t equipped to reach for the next rung on the ladder.
If all the kids who live in the city attended the SLPS, it would not be failing. Lisa S is on the right track–many parents abide by the mantra “my kids won’t go to SLPS” even though they haven’t even looked at it. The media and conventional wisdom drills it into the heads of every middle class family that you “can’t” send your kids to the SLPS. If all the families who expect a good solid education were sending their kids to the SLPS, the SLPS would reflect the scores of those kids and it would look like most other districts (not that every County district is so great, but again its the media and CW–county good, city bad).
So those of us who expect good public schooling for our kids find the SLPS can provide a good education if we expect it and pay attention. Those of you who want your kids in private schools where your kids can be religiously indoctrinated and surrounded by others like you find those options because you think those are the best. Frankly, since I don’t want my kids in a parochial school, if that becomes the option for “public” schooling in the city it will drive me out, not in. Many others too, I suspect. If they want parochial school then they are already doing that, wherever they live.
What is much more concerning to me is that the external reasons that our kids struggle are not being addressed, and diverting attention to subsiding private schools and, basically, continuing tax breaks for the well to do will keep us from ever addressing the issues of the not so well to do.
A divided community by design stays that way as the everyday citizen argues more about minutiae than the critical issues. Separated by politcal, legal and highway boundaries, small matters like trash pickup or definitions become battle grounds. The orignial issue is lost in the fight and, like most matters in StL, the important issues remain unaddressed and unsolved.
– –
For the SLPS to be successful requires motivated, well educated and resourceful parents to be involved. To attract this critical mass requires the area to offer good jobs, low crime, a responsive political system and nice homes. StL offers nice homes, but the other matters also need fixing. The horse is out of the barn and the range of choices/solutions is dramamtically reduced.
– –
Experienced, thoughtful and wise, George McGovern understands: “I’ve come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.”
“If all the kids who live in the city attended the SLPS, it would not be failing.” I agree! But the unfortunate reality is that perception IS reality – the number of students in the SLPS system is dropping by more than 6% per year. People are voting with their feet, with many of them actually choosing to move out of the city. Would I like to see SLPS “saved” and reinvented? Yes! But the question is simply, how? Do we keep “throwing more and more money at the problem” or do we “cut our losses”? Much like shopping malls, there comes a time when everything is headed in the wrong direction, customers are choosing to shop eleswhere, and it simply makes more sense to level everything and start over. “Putting lipstick on the pig” simply delays the inevitable . . .
stlmama – There are two possible responses to your statement, so I’ll offer them both:
1. You’re right, if all the kids who live in the city attended the SLPS, it would not be failing. Of course, unless we dissolved neighborhood schools, many of them would still be failing, and then we’d be having the perennial “north side-south side” argument. Then, somebody would say, “If we bused kids from St. Louis Hills to Walnut Park, then northside schools wouldn’t be failing.”
2. The city is about 50% black. The city schools are 82% black. Riverview Gardens, unaccredited, is over 97% black. Wellston, interim accredication and taken over by the state, is 100% black. Normandy, provisionally accredited, is 99% black. What we really have here is a failure to educate black kids. Putting a bunch of white kids into the SLPS to raise the overall test scores won’t solve the underlying problem.
You are right Nick. That was the gist of my last paragraph. Skin color does not make the brain work differently.
Not just the racial analysis but the poverty analysis of struggling school districts are as you described. Until the external issues that are impacting our minority and impoverished kids are addressed, “fixing the schools” is to ignore the real problem. And I’m wondering, in the County districts that get the free pass for being good educational systems, how are the minorities and poor doing there? If putting the middle class kids into the SLPS to improve overall scores is considered to be just hiding the problem, then the problem likely exists in any district with minority and impoverished students, but they are avoiding addressing it because the middle class kids are keeping them afloat.
So this shouldn’t be an SLPS issue, it should be much larger than that, if we truly want public education to succeed for all our kids. It’s a huge problem when state legislators, most of whom represent lily-white districts, are involved in micromanaging school districts which are not all rural and white.
I don’t think we need to keep throwing more money at the problem. I think we need to address the social issues that are causing the problem. Treating symptoms is a waste of time.
#
# john w.on 08 Mar 2008 at 5:59 pm
Repopulate the city, dammit!
How? The city is treading water, a small, small uptick which is encouraging.
Tax breaks for new housing? Doing that and it seems to be working (to an extent), and will prove its worth, or not, when the abatements end.
Provide a quality, free education. Can’t do that, or at least not in the last twenty plus years. Charters and vouchers might be able to do it, might not, but the parents, largely the arbiters of what is ‘quality’, would at least have the choice to decide if Charter A or Charter B is better than SLPS.
Without that choice, parents may leave the city. The parents should feel empowered to control their child’s education and choice allows them to do that. Magnets do as well, but more choices give the parents more power.
I am against government funding of religious education, though I am proud product of it, due to separation of church and state.
Why is there an assumption (voiced by stlmama) that if vouchers were introduced the only option would be sending your kid to a parochial school?
Surely, there would be affordable, non-religious schools that would take the vouchers.
And don’t assume that every public school would disappear if vouchers were introduced. I imagine that the good public schools, and even some mediocre ones (due to inertia), would remain popular.
It’s interesting that after citing all the failing schools along with the high percentage of blacks in those schools, that the responsibility falls on those that fail to successfully educate blacks.
What else could it be?
There are so many things that I need to comment on, that I don’t know where to begin. I am sorry I didn’t start asking questions sooner?
1. How many of the “experts” in this section have spent any quality time at a variety of St. Louis Public Schools? Aside from 1 years of teaching…
2. If Charter Schools are the answer, how come they lack the state oversight that other public schools experience?
3. Has anyone critically examined the role of desegregation in the decline of the SLPS? If 10-12,000 students are being bussed out to suburban districts everyday instead of the SLPS, that makes a major difference. Besides, everyone wants to talk about free-market competition, but academic competition is also critical. When students compete against one another, the level of student achievement is raised.
4. I will agree that the SLPS is not the greatest, but no urban district is exceptional. In St. Louis, we deal with a lot of subtle racism that drives this divide. The bureaucracy and instability of the SLPS is the greatest hindering factor. I believe some teachers are being harbored that should not be teaching, but the majority of teachers are doing what they can in order to teach children who do not want to be there for one reason or another.
5. Until people truly understand the situation the children come from in the inner city, you have no room to pass judgment on them. Many of the kids go through life alone, hungry, tired, and living in fear of what is going to happen next. I agree with the person who said that until we have jobs, safe streets, and accountable leadership…nothing will ever change.
6. To everyone who continues to bash the SLPS, be a part of the solution, and not the problem. People really don’t research their options when it comes to the schools. St. Louis is unusually distinct in the percentage of children who attend parochial schools over private schools. Until the culture of the city and region changes from how schools define us, this will never change.
I am so sick of the bashing and no one offering real solutions except to pass the buck on to someone or something else. Until this community takes control of what they are paying for, nothing will ever change. Vouchers and charters are not the answers, they are merely bandages on a massive wound. When 12% of eligible voters participate in elections, what does that say about our apathy as a whole? As an Eric Clapton song states, “Before you accuse me, take a good look at yourself.”