Charter schools are not the answer. If Slay and his people would help St Louis Public Schools the way they should that would be a great educational system again. Back what you have Slay and quit trying to hurt the SLPS. There are great teachers and administrators in this sysytem.

I disagree. Charter School are an answer to many problems. If a school fails, it gets closed (see above story). This is the beauty of it. In public school they would remain open despite the fact they are broken.

Excellent. Close the other (illegal) leeches as well. SLPS outperforms charters in so many way, but there is almost no accountability for charters; the only way they get closed is if they go too far and turn into glorified day care centers. No accountability for charters, so our “leaders” can go on and on about their “superiority”, when actually, they are crap. Parents, beware the lies.

TFerguson, do you have experience with Charters, or are you just taking what the SLPS is feeding you? My experience with Charter Schools has been absolutely great. Only when we had to start dealing with the SLPS for a high school did I really understand what a mess THAT particular system is.

I think a charter schools value is in accountability. The fact that we are having this discussion is proof that when a public school fails and parents start looking at free alternatives for their children it sends a loud message to that local public school. Your system is failing and we want alternatives. I agree that the best approach would be to fix the problems in the public schools, but I don’t think that is practical in todays society. Many students are short sided or just plain lazy, many parents are hypersensitive, prideful, and defensive and the public schools don’t seem to have the ability to correct that. I think the biggest introspection for the public school administrators came when charter schools started opening and communities began taking a closer look at the failing system as a result. I also believe that charter schools can undergo curriculum experiments in ways that the big public schools cannot. If those experiments are successful then maybe they can be implemented on a larger scale. But I think Jim is correct in that saving a few and letting the rest fail is not a long term solution.

Why is every thing we ever hear about public schools in regards to “No child left behind”, or Alternative schools etc? These systems are set up and geared for mediocrity from the outset. While I think that we should educate all children equally, why not spend the same amount of resources on the children that excel? Why not focus on the extremely gifted at least as much as those who underperform? Our schools are a microcosm of our society. Mediocrity is the accepted norm. If we bring up those who underachieve up to mediocrity then our educational system is viewed as having achieved its goals.

If slps was a charter school, it would of been closed decades ago.

That would have been a shame, as SLPS has half the Blue Ribbon schools in the state. T

The district is only judged by its failures, and its successes should count for something too.

No intention on nitpicking, Ms. Wessling, but on quick analysis, I believe SLPS had three schools named Blue Ribbon Schools between 2003 and 2007? And I think there were about 21 total Missouri schools named in the same period. Is that correct?