Post-Disgrace

COMMENTARY

When the balance of power shifted on the St. Louis City School Board back in April, the Post-Dispatch and its education reporter, Steve Giegerich, suddenly began to watch the district with a critical eye.

Before, when the board members were going through superintendents like Kleenex, thumbing their noses and the state’s Sunshine laws, and talking fiscal responsibility while voting in favor of budgets that actually added to the financial crisis, Giegerich and his paper barely printed a critical word.

But suddenly, after the new board took over, around the same time Pub Def first reported that Mayor Francis Slay and board members Bob Archibald and Ron Jackson began secret communications with state officials about taking over SLPS, the Post began its series of attacks on the district and members of the new board majority.

As a matter of fact, the “good reporting being done by P-D education writer Steve Giegerich” (as Mayor Slay notes on his blog) is actually used as evidence in the Special Committee on SLPS’ report calling for a state takeover.

Just today, Giegerich writes under the headline “Bourisaw slapped over wage issue at school board meeting”, that one board member attacked the superintendent last night for him not knowing what he was doing when he voted against her recommended budget amendment last week.

Nowhere do Giegerich or his editors inform their readers that this particular board member, Robert Archibald, was the first public official to call for a state takeover of the district, a complete abdication of his own responsibilities, and therefore has an invested interest in attacking the superintendent.

And nowhere does the Post note in today’s article that the majority of other board members did not blame the superintendent. They either voted for her request in the first place or acknowledged that maybe they just weren’t paying close attention at the last meeting.

The fact is that many (if not most) of the reporters and editors at the Post-Dispatch do not live in St. Louis City — and neither do their readers. Maybe that is why they seem to have no problem actively destroying the image of our public schools — especially now that the mayor is leading the charge.

In fact, our crisis seems entertaining to their suburban readers who have their urban neighbors’ education and crime problems to discuss until the new season of “American Idol” starts.

But for those of us that do care about this city, and deeply resent the constant attempts of outsiders to take away our power in the name of fixing our problems for us, I have to say that the Post is indeed disgraceful in its cheerleading for our disenfranchisement.