Columnists Jamala Rogers
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin was the keynote speaker for the St. Louis American Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education banquet. She excited the audience with stories of the kinds of support her office gives to young people in their pursuit for educational excellence. There were times during her presentation that I simply forgot that she was a mayor and not the school district’s superintendent.
Atlanta’s first black female mayor admitted that she is “playing in someone else’s sandbox” when she takes an active role in helping the district meet its academic goals. In addition to her personal involvement with students, one of Mayor Franklin’s many impressive accomplishments is that she seeks out corporate and civic partners to provide college scholarships to African-American students who otherwise might slip through the cracks.
I don’t think Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall finds those kinds of actions intrusive. Hall is a ball of energy herself, with a motto for the district: “We are committed to raising the floor and taking off the roof!”
St. Louis Mayor Francis G. Slay could take some pointers from his sistah-mayor. Instead, Slay continues to pout and stomp because the kind of help he wants to give the St. Louis Public Schools is neither wanted nor needed.
Concerned taxpayers voted against his slate of candidates in two elections. Since then, he has given the school board prez the cold shoulder and insisted that if he couldn’t have the district, nobody would – except the state.
In brief, he’s trying to dynamite the sandbox.
Slay has demanded that the state department of education take over the district, a move that would be unprecedented in the history of the St. Louis schools.
In a very short period of time, Diana Bourisaw (with a horde of enthusiastic staff and volunteers) got bus schedules together, buildings opened, teachers assigned and even had record attendance the first week of school. This doesn’t mean there were (and are) no problems, but it was a face-cracking experience for those who predicted an opening week of chaos and failure.
One big problem now is the number of over-crowded classrooms.
An interesting read in the West End Word was an article on alternative education. It highlighted the growing number of local families who home-school their children. Most parents aren’t doing so because they are necessarily anti-public schools. They cited more fundamental reasons like classroom size.
One parent stated that 30 kids in a class is not “an optimal size” to educate. Other parents talked about public school teachers not having the time to teach to the individual needs of students. For the bulk of public school students, they also come to class with unmet social and emotional needs. More than 20 students in a class can only compromise the learning experience and add to the frustration of both teachers and students. Private schools that boast small teacher-to-student ratios understand that it is a powerful pre-requisite to academic success.
The school year is not quite 30 days old, but many positives can be pointed out. These need to multiply 10-fold if we are to neutralize the damage created by superintendents Roberti and Williams.
As for sandboxes, Mayor Slay’s own box is a bit raggedy. That’s why the city has a ball park without the village – and now want taxpayers to foot the bill. Tourism is down in the city because of the small-mindedness of this administration. And so on.
Slay needs to give his own sandbox his undivided attention. Then he would have less time to be a bully in the school and fire department sandboxes.