In an interview she gave for a St. Louis American editorial published on May 8, state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal looked ahead to a face-off with Gov. Jay Nixon when the Missouri Legislature passed the education omnibus bill Senate Bill 493, as she predicted it would.
“If we pass a bill that saves Normandy Schools and the governor vetoes it,” Chappelle-Nadal said and The American printed in its editorial, “that will be the second time he turned his back on black children.”
The bill passed, as Chappelle-Nadal predicted. And as she predicted, Nixon stated once again his opposition to a provision of the bill that allows students who live in unaccredited school districts to transfer to an accredited non-sectarian private school in the same district, with tuition for the students paid out of the district’s locally generated funds.
At a press conference in the state capitol on Wednesday, May 14, Chappelle-Nadal repeated her challenge to the governor almost verbatim.
“If the governor vetoes this bill,” Chappelle-Nadal said, as reported by St. Louis Public Radio, “it will be the second time he has turned his back on poor black children. The last time he did that is when he was the attorney general and he decided to end desegregation.”
Nixon tried and failed to end St. Louis’ desegregation program – and paid for his attempt politically.
Asked for a reaction to Chappelle-Nadal’s statements, Nixon spokesman Scott Holste told St. Louis Public Radio: “I don’t see any need to comment on that.”
Nixon may feel emboldened by the fact that there is no consensus among African Americans in the state Legislature concerning SB 493.
State Rep. Clem Smith, who like Chappelle-Nadal represents part of the Normandy School District, sides with Nixon in opposing the private transfer provision.
“Shifting taxpayer money intended for public schools to private schools will not improve public education and should not be a part of this discussion,” Smith said in a statement. “Lawmakers must focus on the issue at hand – fixing a broken student transfer law to provide financial certainty for affected school districts and a quality public education for all students.”
State Rep. Joshua Peters also sided with Nixon. “This is nothing but a voucher program to funnel public taxpayers dollars from our public schools into surrounding suburban districts and private schools,” Peters said in a statement.
State Rep. Michael Butler also released a statement opposing the bill, including a thinly veiled insult of his political enemy state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, who supports the bill along with Chappelle-Nadal.
State Rep. Tommie Pierson who represents the unaccredited Riverview Gardens School District, openly called for Nixon to veto the bill.
“Senate Bill 493 does nothing to help the students of Normandy and Riverview Gardens and is the first step toward the privatization of public education in Missouri,” Pierson said in a statement.
However, as minority Democrats in the Missouri House, Smith, Peters, Butler and Pierson were bystanders on this legislation, which Chappelle-Nadal successfully navigated through a divisive political process in the state Senate.
Ironically, this racially charged piece of legislation will land on the governor’s desk on eve of the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision, outlawing racial segregation in U.S. schools.
“Brown v. Board of Education shifted the legal and moral compass of our nation,” President Obama said in a proclamation on Friday. “It declared that education ‘must be made available to all on equal terms’ and demanded that America’s promise exclude no one.”