State Control of City Schools Extended 3 More Years

I’ve been slammed this week with other work so I apologize for letting this slip pass me, because this is a very big deal.

KWMU reports:

The Missouri Board of Education has voted unanimously to continue state oversight of the St. Louis school District for three more years.

Last year, State Board members voted to give authority over St. Louis schools to an appointed transitional board, for failing to meet financial and academic standards.

Dr. Kent King, Commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), says he believes progress has been made on how the school district is being run.

“Part of that is trying to get consistency among expectations for teachers and for kids…so, do we have the world solved? No, but I just feel like there’s some stability going on now that wasn’t before,” King said.

Katherine Wessling is a member of the old, elected school board. She says one year later, the SAB has done little to improve education in St. Louis.

“I frankly haven’t seen any. In fact my hope was at least they would do no harm and then when they decided to dispense with Dr. Bourisaw I think they lost that status and are now actively doing harm,” says Wessling.