Elected officials in St. Louis County, which has no charter schools, are upset that the state legislature has voted to give them a new charter school, against their wishes. Their efforts to improve the struggling Normandy district will be undermined by the charter school. If you recall, Michael Brown (the teen who was shot and killed in Ferguson, leading to national protests), went to school in the Normandy district.
The possibility of the first public charter school opening in north St. Louis County, within the struggling Normandy school district’s borders, is being met with opposition from some local government leaders.
If approved by the Missouri State Board of Education, the Leadership School will launch in fall 2021 as the first charter school to open outside of either St. Louis or Kansas City in the two decades of the program’s existence.
Several mayors of the small towns that make up the Normandy Schools Collaborative held a press conference Thursday afternoon to voice their opposition to the new school, saying elected representation should be involved in improving the district.
“We say to anyone who wants to come into our community to help in that fight, we welcome you,” said Brian Jackson, the mayor of Beverly Hills. “But we have to say to you, not without us.”
The officials argued Normandy is turning its school system around despite inadequate resources. A charter school opening nearby will further starve the district of funding, they said.
Charter schools — which are publicly funded but run independently from elected local school boards — have opened only in St. Louis and Kansas City since their 1999 creation. They’re allowed by current state law to open outside those two cities if the school district is not fully accredited.
In another story on the same event:
A charter school is coming to the Normandy school district next fall, despite the most organized opposition since the taxpayer-funded schools first opened 20 years ago in St. Louis.
“We reject the idea of experimenting with our educational system with our children,” said Joyce McRath, a former Normandy School Board member. “The push for charter schools rarely happens in rural communities or communities that don’t look like ours.”
Unfortunately, the Legislature is moving forward without listening to local elected officials. They will open a charter school without considering the damage it will do to the Normandy schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I served on the NM Public Education Commission (PEC) for 8 years. The PEC was the authorizer for state chartered schools. Several times the PEC denied poorly written charter school applications that had absolutely no merit only to have the decision overturned by Secretary Education Skandera. This included virtual charter schools.
These charter schools eventually fail and had to be closed. This all because Skandera, a person just like DeVos, maintained a total belief in charter schools as the answer to all the ills of the public schools.
The only people to gain from these charter schools were the originators. The individuals who suffered were the students and parents.
Hopefully the next US Secretary of Education will have a more intelligent understanding about charter schools and vouchers. Both are threats to our public school system and our democracy.
Congratulations to you for surviving for surviving the era of Reform Florida Style in New Mexico!
If folks here are interested in the background story of the Normandy school district, it is the focus of the ProPublica / This American Life two part podcast The Problem We All Live With (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-one)
fight fire with fire
Once that unwanted charter school is built, burn it down.
If they build it again, burn it again.
If the Charter School Crime Synciate will not stop, follow the money and take out the source working from the top down until there are no more members of this crime group with beating hearts.
The Normandy school district was forced by the state board to absorb the Wellston school district, a high poverty district. Although I do not support such a response to low test scores and poverty in the Wellston district by absorption, the decision was not in the interest of the students. If the state board was adamant to merge districts, it should have merged Wellston with the neighboring University City school district. University City has a significant white population. Wellston has about 2% white residents.
I am a retired teacher who worked in the Normandy School District. Our motto, in the 2004 school year was: 64 and 2 more” which referenced how many points our district was shy of becoming a fully accredited School District. At that time, our Superintendent resigned. A new Superintendent, Dr. Connie Callaway was hired. During the new Superintendent’s tenure, our scores dropped dramatically. What happened? Nobody seems to know or understand. Normandy School District has been on a roller coaster ride since Dr. Raymond Armstrong resignation/retirement.