A report from Missouri says the state auditor may launch an investigation of state Commissioner of Education Chris Nicasrto, who gave a contract to an Indianapolis firm that was not the low bidder. The firm is known for its love of privatization as a cure for big-city schools.
Teachers unions, legislators, and the St. Louis branch of the NAACP have called for Nicastro’s resignation.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:
“Last week, the storm developing around Nicastro intensified after a release of department emails triggered questions about how it entered into a $385,000 contract with CEE-Trust, whose bid was three times higher than the next-highest of four bidders.
“The emails showed that Nicastro had been communicating with the firm’s executive director for four months before the contract was agreed upon in August by the state Board of Education.
“They also show that she tried to give the contract to CEE-Trust without seeking other bids, until members of the state board raised concerns about circumventing the typical bidding process.
“The contract is being paid by private dollars from two groups supportive of charter schools — the Kauffman Foundation and the Hall Family Trust.
“Late last month, other department records that became public showed that Nicastro had been consulting with Kate Casas, the state policy director for the Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri, about how to craft a ballot initiative petition aimed at eliminating teacher tenure. Rex Sinquefield, the billionaire investor and school choice advocate, is a primary backer of the organization.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They are all singing the same tune.
Connecticut Superintendents almost had the nerve to write a letter of concern to our commissioner of education who is up to familiar shenanigans:
http://jonathanpelto.com/2013/12/12/ct-association-public-school-superintendents-capss-face-sells-members-ct-school-districts-students-parents-teachers-taxpayers/
Does this mean that Mr. Sinquefeld is a supporter of Gulen/hizmet charter schools?
So – what else is “new”? We in Indiana have seen this happen here also. My guess is that this is something that will continue to be emulated. When money supersedes children and indeed people in general, in importance why be surprised?
Chating has become a way of life. here are other samples as will as the fix, you can do, now, in your school. http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
I read the linked article, and a couple others that it lead me to (about TFA and about the consultant group from NC saying what a monumental task it will be to fix the schools in Missouri).
So then I checked out the website for that group, Public Impact. Their team has very impressive credentials.
My question is this:
Why are the people with such impressive credentials not teaching?
I think we have an avoidance culture among education “fixers.” People want to talk about it and fix and find strategies and find new ways to help, but what they don’t want is to actually get up every day at 5 a.m. (like I do) and work until nearly 5 p.m., plus some, dealing with children (which takes a lot of patience and creative self-managing to stay energized and motivated) and do the work. It seems to me if a lot of these consultants and experts would actually go work in a classroom, some real impact might occur.
It reminds me of my brief time teaching preschool in an arts academy. At clean-up time, several kids realized if they walked around with the toy bucket getting other people to put the toys in it, they didn’t actually have to do the work of cleaning up. So before you knew it, you had six kids trying to carry the toy bucket together. And actually, nobody needed to carry the toy bucket. It worked best to just put it in the middle of the room and everybody get busy carrying toys over to the boy bucket.
What we have here is lots of people carrying the toy bucket. And not very many people doing the work.
So true! “Reformers” ostensibly want to help “those poor children” but they don’t want to do the crucial work of teaching them.
In the end, this education war will be won by the people who opt to teach the children. I have no doubt about that.
I like hearing that. I think so too. Those who show up to teach.
The reformers want to make money from their various for-profit schemes that they are foisting on school systems. they have no interest actually working with children.
Joanna Best: good points.
But remember: the big money/big ideas people who are leading the “new civil rights movement” of our era don’t waste their precious talents and time on insipid practicalities. No, they’ve got to reserve their very limited time and energy for the really important tasks like giving TED talks and sharing their pearls of wisdom on EducationNation.
Whether here or abroad, they “outsource” the actual work of educating real live students to the “little people” [remember Leona Helmsley?] like you.
Didn’t you get the memo? If you didn’t, don’t feel bad—I’m not on their emailing list either.
😎
Yes and that is so they can work in fancy offices, fly from city to city, wear dry clean only clothes, have leisurely meals and long meetings in corporate board rooms, and feel important.
What a farce. Mostly to themselves. What a charade, often.
I know that my corduroy pants and sensible sweater that make it easy for me to be down at a child’s level for games and stories and songs and pretending we are singing under water on the last verse of “Kookabura,” at which they giggle with great delight, makes me a success in teaching children. Had I wanted dry clean clothes and high rise board rooms I would not have gone into public education.
It is embarrassing to watch these folks. I understand our country all needs to be involved in the conversation of public education, but the avoidance of real work replaced with managing testing and the belief (without the sweat equity or elbow grease) of “100% of children doing the same thing” by people in power suits who would not know what to do with a child’s nose bleed or tattling or squabbling that comes with classroom management is just pure embarrassing. Some kid needs to wipe a bugar on them. (And I don’t tend to talk in gross terms usually, but really).
toy bucket, not boy bucket
Geez, yet another billionaire (Rex Sinquefield, the billionaire investor and school choice advocate) who wants to privatize schools, get rid of tenure, destroy the unions and promote charters throughout the known universe and beyond. Please wake me up when this nightmare is over. To add insult to injury, PBS, my beloved PBS, is running a little 5 minute Michele Rhee infomercial in which she holds court for 5 minutes on how great she is. It’s a narcissistic self promotional in which Rhee pontificates about her philosophy of education and management style. In the promo she says that she’s not about warm and fuzzy….dear God, at that point I almost vomited and hit the mute button. PBS is treating Rhee as if she were the pope of education. It’s an uncritical self-promotion in which it’s wall to wall Rhee for 5 minutes. Appalling.
Let them know you disapprove. I am going to. All you educators on here should too.
Contracts awarded contrary to state law? We have similar malfeasance here in CT. The Commisioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, recently hired a blatantly unqualified person for the trivial position of running the new teacher evaluation system. Read about it here. http://jonathanpelto.com/2013/12/13/commissioner-pryors-education-department-connecticut-experts-need-apply/
I have a lot to say about Missouri…..and I hope there is merit in some of it. My biggest complaint is that the media coverage is dominated by the billionaire foundations…primarily sinquefield, who practically owns the legislature. The report 8 days ago in the Kansas City Star might have upset the applecart. Often, I criticize the St. Louis Post Dispatch for being narrow in its coverage….I mention Diane, and encourage people to come to this site, to learn just how wide the discussion of education is in the rest of the country. I posted the article from the star on the pd forum, and predicted they would ignore it. I was happy to apologize the next day, when their reporter Elisa Crouch did an excellent follow up story. Then, the day after that, I, along with several others, lambasted the (all white) editorial board for their support of Nicastro…..ignoring their own reporter’s story. But, for me, the most significant news happened Friday, in a report by Dale Singer in the Beacon and kwmu radio…..http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/amid-controversies-embattled-nicastro-tries-keep-focus-kids
The president of the Missouri State school board is named Peter Herschend…he has been there more than 20 years, and is an old fashioned conservative. Most of the rest of the board has been appointed more recently by democratic (supposedly) governor Jay Nixon. The vice president of the board is named Michael Jones…..a black man from St. Louis where most of the controversial stuff is happening. He was nominated for the board by his ex wife, senator Robin Wright Jones, who had her career destroyed by the Post Dispatch…..http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/robin-wright-jones-paperwork-fails-to-account-for/article_977ed62f-43e7-5600-b70a-1543684d278a.html
I have badgered the Post Dispatch to lift their ban on talking to Board Member Jones, (they do occasionally write one sentence about him), even going so far as to give my November social security check to United way if they would interview him. That did not work, but I contributed the money anyway. Dale Singer of the Beacon….born of Emily Pulitzer’s money a few years ago is the first Missouri reporter to interview Jones, and I was disappointed in what he had to say….at first. Then I realized……he walked a tightrope, and said things quite different than what was being reported. To me, it sounded like he was gently telling Nicastro to knock this crap off…..his reason being that if she were replaced, the political forces would probably come up with something worse. It would not be the first time….a year ago, he rescued the st. Louis public schools from becoming unaccredited……she “changed her mind”….and he might be preparing to do the same for KC. I will print what he said….he divides the reform movement into 3 sections, including the portion which sees public education as a cash cow, and he is vaguely critical of the public education establishment. I can be offended or I can laugh at him throwing this bone to the right wingers in Missouri…….” the process of making the sausage is a different issue. I’m big on accountability. I think transparency is fairly overrated. Transparency is a liberal fetish. It’s way overemphasized.”” where is Bob Dylan when we need him….something here is happening, and you don’t know what it is….do you….Mr. Jones”. Then again….I will print out what he told Dale Singer….maybe he does know……maybe he makes the PD nervous about all he knows……
Victor Lenz, the other st.louis member of the Board the PD has yet to talk to gave Nicastro a pass….As far as the emails and the allegations of a conspiracy, Lenz said the record is primarily a reflection of how communications have changed.
“In order to set things up like that,” he said, “you have to have emails and communicate with people. These things used to be done by telephone, and you wouldn’t have any written record. I don’t see conspiracy there at all.”
Jones……..hmmmmmm………
Mike Jones, who serves as vice president of the board, went even further, saying that those who criticize Nicastro for a lack of transparency are off the mark.
“I think public officials need to be accountable,” he said. “I don’t think there is a decision you make as a public official that you don’t have to account for your rationale and how you got there.
“But the process of making the sausage is a different issue. I’m big on accountability. I think transparency is fairly overrated. Transparency is a liberal fetish. It’s way overemphasized.”
In his view, Nicastro is trying to negotiate a fine line between two competing education strategies.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MICHAEL?
“Urban education has really become a fight between two interest groups,” Jones said, “and poor black children happen to be the battle ground over which the battle is being fought.
“On one side you have the education reform establishment. There is a small group (HE SAID SMALL GROUP) of people who want it to work for all children, then there are two other groups: libertarians, who live in a fantasy world and don’t believe in public education, (WHAT..YEAH, I GUESS) and corporate interests, who see education as a cash cow. RIGHT ON!
“Then you have the education establishment. They are genuinely concerned about the education of kids, except they collectively seem to lack the will to fundamentally change the way we deliver public education. They have lost the moral high ground.”
Jones says he doesn’t think the board has any issues with Nicastro’s performance, (NO, OF COURSE HE DOESN’T)and he disagrees with anyone who says the changes that may be coming in Kansas City and elsewhere have already been determined. (ALL THOSE SECRET MEETINGS DO NOT MEAN A DAMNED THING UNTIL WE….NOT JUST HERSCHEND, SAY IT DOES)
“I would argue there is absolutely no consensus on any of these recommendations,” he said. “Not only has the train not left the station on this issue, we don’t even have everybody at the station yet.” (I GET THE FEELING SOME OF WHAT IS PLANNED WILL BE…….RECONSIDERED).
Joe–
Thank you for posting all of this.
I taught in KC for several years and so it remains of special interest to me, both out of nostalgic curiosity and personal investment, but also from the philosophical essence of what goes on there (its history is so interesting and yet so sad). I have hopes for it. I worked in two schools, one mostly white in Independence, and one only 10% white along Van Brundt Blvd. My observation in KC was always that teachers were working very hard and I found adequate support from administration and professional development (some of the facilities were a little run down). . .but it was parents in the high poverty schools that seemed to lack the means or skills or time to give the support for their children needed for school (I suppose that is the poverty factor). And I know the history of KCMO and the white flight has added to its struggles.
Unions were not something I had experienced before I moved to the midwest (I’m from the south). And I still think I am a little naive in regards to unions. But I am so saddened by the union vs. corporate struggle for public education. If folks are truly thinking of children it seems to me they WILL find a middle ground, or a common ground or NEW ground where the children really do come first within the context of community and what is public.
I looked at the agenda for CEE-Trust meeting in KC just last week. It looked fair on paper; it looked like they were discussing things from all sides, what brings success, what doesn’t etc. and I saw reference to a reading by Kramer called Catalytic Philanthropy. (Now, granted I think a lot of these people who are trying to solve the problem of public schools need to just get into the public schools and TEACH instead of talking about it or avoiding actually working with kids, getting dirty and being in the frontlines—-that’s where real leadership is needed). More attention to group-building ACTIVITIES and not philosophies or testing are what is needed. Pragmatic approaches, such as one might learn at the Presbyterian School for Christian Education (take the Christ out of it and it is basically good teaching and group-building methods; I’ve seen it in action—it works).http://www.upsem.edu/
That’s my hope for KC. That a hybrid of this notion of corporate interests influencing schools can come about without the schools being taken away from the public. Like maybe it could be like the Panama Canal or Hong Kong and be under temporary control only to be handed back after a period of time IF the municipality wants that. I do think the corporate interests want to help because they want their city to thrive and look good; maybe there is some selfish interest on the part of some, but I don’t look at Hall and Kauffman foudations like that. I think they just want KC to be a great city. Of course, I know there are variations in what is considered great for a city.
I watch with interest. And I hope they can come up with something impressive that other places can emulate. I don’t think it has to be a hopeless situation for either interest (corporate vs. union).
“But I am so saddened by the union vs. corporate struggle for public education.”
I don’t see this as a “union vs corporate” struggle at all. It’s a privatizer vs public school issue and the privatizers want public education dollars to flow to them.
Duane–
when I talk to people not in education, they see it as I described it—an extension of that battle. Where the politics come in, I think it is about unions and corporations. But I’m open to hearing any observation.
What do you think the solution is?
I thought the Missouri School board member I talked about…Michael Jones…. went beyond the corporate versus union thing in a fairly sophisticated way. (he is a black democrat who holds a job as advisor to the st. Louis county commissioner, who is in mildly hot water but will run for re-election). I cannot emphasize how much he has been ignored by the media in Missouri, especially the post dispatch…“On one side you have the education reform establishment. There is a small group of people who want it to work for all children, then there are two other groups: libertarians, who live in a fantasy world and don’t believe in public education, and corporate interests, who see education as a cash cow.
“Then you have the education establishment. They are genuinely concerned about the education of kids, except they collectively seem to lack the will to fundamentally change the way we deliver public education. They have lost the moral high ground.” He is a complex character….. might be wrong, but I believe he was zeroing in on sinquefield…the cash cow reference…..and Nicastro, who the pd is reporting today supports things which Jones went out of his way to emphasize….have not been decided. I am not sure what he believes the non reformers can do to regain moral high ground, but I believe it is encouraging to hear somebody say there is such a thing, as he dismisses the corporate interests who see education as a cash cow. Stay tuned.
Joe–
definitely. I will
If only someone would wake up in TENNESSEE!….It is my understanding that the TFA 6 or 7 million dollar contract was a non-competitive contract. Oh, and when we went to local districts that is something we monitored. We kept thinking the FEDS would clean house…Haha on that one. The FEDS are endorsing all this mess. Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:00:33 +0000 To: nancyturnbo@hotmail.com
nancy…as i mentioned…missouri’s media is so dominated by foundation money influence, that the population does not even know about what goes on inother. parts of the country…I often urge people to come here…sometimes ingeneral, sometimes to search for articles on a specific subject, and sometimes for a specific story…I have to wonder….how aware of kipp was the tennessee population when they were messing with kids to alter their student population…was there much reaction?
You know, I might add that: (from the link on NFSL)
“Similarly, while the graduation rate at East High School improved in 2012-13, graduation rates averaged across all open enrollment high schools was below 60 percent”
OK, so those are some of the same kids I taught music to in East K-8 school. 8th grade came to music every day, but we did not have band instruments. So we did it like a chorus. Many of them would tell you they wanted to be drug dealers. I took them to the district office to sing and we performed several times during the year. Most struggled with reading and writing (and 40% were ELL). Some would miss school to go with their parents to job interviews to translate. On the bus to sing at district office they talked about funerals of their family members who had been shot. I mean this is hard core “hood” type talk. These kids were street smart. The district is up against the culture of poverty from which they come.
I did get positive press coverage for them. We were on KCUR for our Black Cowboy program and in the Star too (for which I received a phone call from the district communications office for not going through them, but I wanted those kids to get positive coverage), and they did.
These kids needed so much more than instruction (and definitely not rampant testing). They needed leadership and group-building. I saw teachers working hard, counselors, etc all doing so much for these children. The answers lie in interested corporations working WITH the schools and teachers, not despite or instead of them. If not but for the teachers there would not have been sports, or extra activities for them. The kids had very little understanding of decorum for anything other than survival. And teachers were doing their best to demonstrate it for them, but addressing the culture in which they live is so important. Not as an excuse but as a realistic way of reaching those children.
Again, I hope some solutions can be found that are not political. Call me naive, but I am also a mother and I happen to like people and children (even if they are poor or a different color than me). There are church communities and civic groups who want to help the KCMO schools. Perhaps they can be the bridge between the corporate interests and those of the union, and the state.
http://kcur.org/post/children-celebrate-black-american-cowboy
The pd cannot respond to me directly…a matter of not wanting to admit that they pay any attention to a nut case like me…..but…the naacp had a letter to the editor…
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/nicastro-should-step-aside-naacp-chapter-president-says/article_e953702e-00b0-5738-b2e1-6542d354f8ad.html
.Missouri Commissioner of Education Chris Nicastro has been under fire and challenged by several different groups across the state. Nicastro is being challenged because of secret negotiations that have taken place between her and a consultant by the name of CEE-Trust. CEE-Trust’s plan to develop a strategic plan to aid struggling districts is three times the amount of the other bidders. Shouldn’t all bids for work that require use of taxpayers’ dollars be open to the public?
Nicastro is slowly but surely becoming known as incompetent on a number of levels, not just as head of Missouri’s public schools. You would think that the commissioner has more to do than attempt to deplete public school funding and create charter schools across our state. With all of the issues that plague our local schools, we need someone that is in our corner, not a traitor seeking personal gains from special interest and corporations.
You would think that Nicastro would be tirelessly working to have Art McCoy reinstated as soon as possible to keep the Ferguson-Florissant School district on track. You would even think that Nicastro would be looking for ways day and night to keep the struggling Normandy School District from going bankrupt.
The NAACP nationally and locally is against charter schools, vouchers, transfer programs, lottery systems, and any system that could potentially deplete public school funding. At the NAACP, we strongly believe that students can succeed regardless of their ZIP code. The remedy to our ailing schools doesn’t lie within turning them into charter schools. It will be found with full support and accountability from the Missouri Legislature, Sen. Claire McCaskill, Sen. Roy Blunt and Gov. Nixon. Through programs that have proven to work such as Beyond Housing, Better Family Life, the Urban League and countless others, we can save our public schools.
Friends, there is a traitor amongst us. Join the NAACP and other groups in asking Nicastro to step aside and allow Missouri’s public schools to move forward.
Esther Haywood • St. Louis County
President, St. Louis County NAACP
I responded to her letterr
.Joe Prichard ·
I wanted you to know that diane ravitch had a much commented upon report about this on her blog. Last week, I posted the naacp statement. Her post from a couple days ago has 26 comments, mine were 12,13 and 14. I brought them up to date with a couple of articles by elisa crouch, which presented enough facts to make the pd editorial look…..uninformed. I hope you saw what dale singer wrote last friday, including the interview of the unmentionable in the post dispatch board member and dooley adviser…..michael jones. I am not sure what the naacp opinion is of mr. jones…..what he said to singer….that nothing has been decided, that there is not agreement on any issue….especially kansas city. It is my feeling that it is bizarre, stupid and quite possibly racist of the white people on the editorial board and elsewhere have a policy that the vice president of the state board of education…the only black person on the board…is someone who does not exist.
six hours after I posted that response…..the pd finally mentioned Michael Jones…they blasted him for making the dumbest quote of the year….but went way beyond that.
The post dispatch really does not like Mr Jones very much…….http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/foul-we-may-have-a-winner-for-dumbest-quote-of/article_67a4a422-c932-55e1-b8e3-30d9e0d05378.html
FOUL: We may have a winner for ‘Dumbest Quote of the Year’
So let’s say you’re Mike Jones, the vice president of the Missouri Board of Education. A reporter calls to ask you about embattled education commissioner Chris Nicastro. You offer your unqualified support for Ms. Nicastro, as other board members have done. That’s fine and dandy. But maybe the reporter, a veteran of Missouri journalism named Dale Singer, knows that you have a tendency to keep talking longer than you should. So he’s quiet for a while. You yap on through the silence and decide that it’s not enough to defend Ms. Nicastro, you have to blame the media for making an issue of what got her in trouble in the first place.
“I’m big on accountability,” you say, even though you’re about to prove otherwise. “I think transparency is fairly overrated. Transparency is a liberal fetish. It’s way overemphasized.”
The reporter hangs up. And surely the combined newsroom at the Beacon and St. Louis Public Radio breaks into guffaws over what might go down as the dumbest thing said by a public official in 2013.
Seriously, Mr. Jones? Forgetting the “liberal fetish” phrase which you, a liberal Democrat, concocted out of thin air, do you really think transparency is overrated?
Sadly, the record of your other role in the public eye, that of senior adviser to St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, would indicate you really believe that. The county has found itself in one transparency flap after another in the past year or so, from secrecy involving the Police Board, to the children’s fund, to asking the County Council to keep it hush-hush that a new county building project approved by voters was about $30 million short.
Voters tend to have a problem with such mistakes — a fetish, if you will. They also don’t take kindly to public officials who conduct business behind closed doors. Like you, we’re fans of Ms. Nicastro. But her errors of transparency (and those of your board), are legitimate areas of concern.
To quote Bob Dylan, “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?”
— Tony Messenger
the writer who broke the ban on talking to Mr. Jones replied to Messenger with some sarcasm……Dale Singer · Staff Writer at St. Louis Beacon
More than 15 years after I was ejected, happy to be back on the Editorial Page. That’s not exactly how it happened with the quotable Mr. Jones, but it’s close enough for newspaper work.
I blasted Messenger, too, but it does not matter…I am an amateur….the central truth….Jones served notice that all these plans, secret or not, have zero in the way of agreement at this point.
the pd attack on state board member michael jones appeared on the pd editorial page this morning, along with a letterto the editor from someone else I admire….the president of the powerless elected board of the st. louis schools. He was there, when the billionaire and the mayor had the schools taken away from the voters about 2008. He is a very smart, top notch guy…he cannot be happy about jones’ careless remark about transparency being a liberal fetish….but I belive they are pretty much on the same page in recognizing the things which should not be allowed to happen…….http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/nicastro-s-lack-of-transparency-does-not-inspire-confidence/article_7182d592-a40f-56a9-b241-c4360910fa8f.html…As the elected voice of the people of the city of St. Louis regarding educational issues, we must say that our constituents do not share the view of the editorial board’s comments regarding Commissioner Chris Nicastro as the person best able to lead our educational system at the moment (“In defense of Nicastro,” Dec. 12). Her lack of transparency does not inspire confidence among supporters of public education.
The Post-Dispatch’s editorial board asserts that she is bringing everyone to the table. Bringing everyone to the table means an open and inclusive discussion, not a backroom string of hidden emails that show an intent to promote the agenda of one school of thought with no regard to the many who think differently. Peter Herschend’s patronizing dismissal of all who are concerned about this matter, likewise, does nothing to assure those of us with an interest in the schools our children attend that the state board is considering the best interest of the students. Rather, they are considering their own best interests in defending the person they hired.
Members of the state board and Commissioner Nicastro may say what they like. Actions speak louder than words, and their actions lead us to urge Gov. Jay Nixon to stand up for the children and families of the state of Missouri and consider whether those he has appointed and who are accountable to him are truly the ones who should be in charge of Missouri education at this critical time.
David L. Jackson Jr. • St. Louis
President, St. Louis Board of Education
I had to respond…what a treat for me in this morning’s editorial page….two of the best informed, most intelligent voices in urban education…..featured prominently…you come out ahead of Mike Jones….i try to be careful to not let my crude outspokeness embarrass people I admire, like you and katie and peter…people so neglected by the pd. I don’t say hershcend any more…I say the senile guy from silver dollar city. i wonder if you have mixed feelings about what happened a year ago…nicastro was planning on keeping slps unaccredited….but….she changed her mind by october, and slps was spared from the transfer mess…part of the deal….takeover board remained in control. I suppose it is possible that jones had nothing to do with just. why she changed her mind. I will be interested in just what happens with kansas city……part of what messenger did not bother with from what jones said………unlike the full speed ahead reports about nicastro and the charter school crud…zero has been decided about anything….st. louis should be gtateful for the elected board…..I use a pretty crude phrase to refer to what the pd helped happen to st. louis voters after you and katie were elected…grateful that you take the trouble to continue to exist.
not part of my response….my nephew’s wife…sarah reckhow wrote a very good book about foundations spending so much money on influencing public policy…follow the money…..she was working on a book about state takeovers…At christmas dinner, i will timidly ask her how that book is coming along…and whether slps will be included among the school district she writes about.
The former president of the st.louis public schools called me…talked about thirty minutes, She is a friend of Mr. Jones and Mr. Jackson….she knows more about Jones than I do, or the Post Dispatch(she has a very low regard for the Post Dispatch)…….she really likes Mr. Jackson, and told me to watch what he said on a local tv station……the appointed board, (they have the approval of Sinquefield) does not have a high regard for transparency….they do not joke about it, as you can learn from this video report….http://fox2now.com/2013/11/27/why-st-louis-city-school-district-is-headed-downhill/
CEE-Trust recommendation for the State of Missouri. Delivered January 13, 2014.
Click to access The_Conditions_for_Success_-_Full_Draft_-_January_2014.pdf