No matter what, Ms. Bourisaw represents the failed ( removed) school board. She was allowed to reapply but its her choice not to.
I truly believe that it would make sense to do as Chicago did over 10 years ago and “explode the blob” and start from scratch. Everyone would be free to apply for all positions from scratch.
It worked in Chicago- and another aspect there is actual ACCOUNTABILITY. Yes Illinois transfered resposibility to the Mayor of Chicago. On second thought, perhaps that would not be wise in St Louis.
Lastly Ms Colemans legislation wont even make it to the floor for a vote. I guarantee that! And even if it did- colored it vetoed. Nice story headline anyway, Maida.

Why on earth would anyone want to return control to the elected board? These buffoons couldn’t run the grill at a fast food joint, much less an urban school district.

Senator Coleman joins a host of foolish and self-interested politicians and “community leaders”, who are determined to oppose everything the SAB does. Fortunately, since she is the Minority Leader, her legislation isn’t worth the paper it was printed on - assuming they even bother to print it.

The education system in this country is completely broken. Politicians,on all levels, have been talking about it for the past 20 years and have accomplished nothing. Oop’s, they have actually accomplished something, they have wasted a few BILLION dollars that could have been used to build state of the art schools in the neighborhoods that the children lived in.

Now, lets not forget the ultimate responsibility of the parents who brought these children into the world to read to them, help them with their homework or just spend time with them.

Oh, that’s right, these parents are busy working 50 plus hours or two jobs just to make ends meet. by the time they get home they are completely worn out and have no patience to help their kids. Thank goodness for the TV or video games.

Just to make sure that we have our priorities correct, the education budget in the latest proposal by “W” is a little over 10% of the defense budget. That’s $60 Billion for Education and $600 BILLION for ?????. Now if there are 100 Million children (1/3 of the population), we spend $600 each to educate and $6000 to teach them how to kill.

Okay, I quit. This could go on all night and most people still won’t understand.

Best of luck to the children.

Mike- I fail to understand how people in this day and age think that the federal government is responsible for education. Surely you dont think that “W” allocate/provide the coin for the local scholol do you? Of course not, we are a nation of local property tax supported education.

Mike - that’s 60 billion too many dollars. Get rid of federal government education dollars and regulations. They do nothing to improve education.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to be in education. It has as its first constitutional priority the defense of the country however.

News flash, Mike, the SLPS’s problem isn’t parents that are working 50 hours a week, it’s parents who aren’t working at all, have several kids by several men, and still can’t find a few minutes to spend with the kids. Yet somehow, you think this is President Bush’s fault. With logic like that, it makes me think you must be a recent graduate of the SLPS yourself.

Actually Nick, I manage the legal program at Legal Advocates for Abused Women (I believe you’ve heard of us) quite successfully, David Jackson is the owner of his own business, Flint Fowler handles Herbert Hoover very well, and Bill Purdy was a good principal prior to his retirement. Donna Jones is an effective advocate against lead poisoning, and Peter Downs is a very good writer who knows more about the SLPS than I imagine you even know there is to know. If you don’t like elected school boards then you don’t like them, but the name-calling does you no credit. Not a one of us is a buffoon, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you at one of our meetings to assess our ability or true natures.

Whatever the merits of the current individual board members, the SLPS board has a long history of infighting and of hiring superintendents who are ineffective or divisive (or both).

Having said that, all I care about is the kids, and in this case my selfish interests and sense of ethics happen to coincide. I prefer that they stay in school, graduate and become successful (taxpaying) citizens.

I don’t know whether Ms. Bourisaw was the right person to achieve that objective, but the SAB apparently has decided that, for now, the district is better off with no superintendent at all than with Ms. Bourisaw. If that is the case, the members of the SAB ought to say why they have reached that conclusion, rather than use the convenient dodge about not commenting on personnel matters. The fact that the SAB is a substitute trustee one step removed from the voters does not relieve it from fulfilling the duties we would expect a functioning SLPS board to perform.

Bill Purdy was principal of Roosevelt and I attended two years while he was there. To say he was a good principal is the biggest farce on the planet. The stories I could tell of what went on there would shock even SLPS parents. The school was on par with a zoo only the animals in the zoo seemed better behaved.