Turner Decision Sends MO Legislators Back To the Drawing Board

In an unusual ruling yesterday judge David Lee Vincent III ruled in favor of the Clayton School District saying that students did not have the right to transfer to accredited districts for free. The ruling hinges on the last two words in that sentence. Judge Vincent said that the Hancock Amendment, which prevents the state from creating unfunded mandates, makes it impossible for school districts to comply with the student transfer law (which had already been ruled valid in previous court cases)  because it places a financial burden on receiving school districts. If schools were forced to comply, Vincent wrote in his 16-page decision, it “would overwhelm area school resources to the extent of adversely impacting local districts. To no ones surprise, it all boils down to the money.

Judge Vincent had heard one of these cases before. He ruled in favor of the school districts in 2008, but the state's high court overturned his ruling two years later and sent the case back to him for trial.  Some definitive legal argument had to be made, because the list of unaccredited school districts is growing. St. Louis city schools were first, followed by Riverview Gardens and Kansas City school districts.  The legislature has been working on legislation to address the problem, like allowing adjacent districts to annex unaccredited schools which was being considered in Kansas City. They also were working on a possible business tax credit option that would allow some of the public school students to go to private schools on scholarships paid for by local businesses.

Yesterday's ruling provides more scaffolding upon which to build a solution, but the full answer is still as clear as soup.

There are now stronger calls for the complete dismantling of the KCSD which has been deemed incompetent. But St Louis is under the governance of a three-member Special Administrative Board (SAB), which has a member appointed by the Governor, one by the Mayor of St. Louis and one by the President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, and those hand picked individuals did not save St. Louis schools from unaccreditation. 

Watch for the next rallying cry to have school districts turned over to mayoral control. Mayoral control of school district matters is not unique. New York City, Boston, Cleveland and Washington, D.C., are among the cities giving ultimate responsibility for their schools to their mayors.  

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has chosen Breakthrough Charter Schools as his ticket out of poor city schools. D.C. Mayor Gray has developed the public charter school board and committed an additional $25.7 million to help those schools next year. The D.C. Public Charter School Board currently oversees 52 public charter schools on 93 campuses serving more than 29,000 students living in every ward of the city.  Public charter schools now serve approximately 39% of all public school students in Washington, D.C.

Mayor Bloomberg has pushed for increasing the number of charter schools in NYC for years. Most recently he pushed for, and got, teacher ratings to be made public, including ratings of 217 charter school teachers. [In a weird twist, one of the purported benefits of charter schools is their high teacher turn over. This is supposed to indicate a more efficient system that identifies bad teachers earlier and gets rid of them faster than public schools.]

Given this history with mayoral control, in our current education reform environment, it is not unreasonable to see people lobbying to give KC and STL mayors governance over their school districts. And when that happens, look for a push for charter schools in both cities. We will be watching to see which hedge fund managers, entrepreneurs or wealthy capitalists are salivating at the cities' borders waiting for their chance to meet with the mayor to get their charters open.

The General Welfare Clause..."Don't Worry, Be Happy"...According to Clayton & Parkway School Districts

I received an email from a concerned parent about the teaching of the Constitution in the Clayton and Parkway school districts. If you are not familiar with these districts, they are considered to be high achieving with good MAP and ACT scores. Any parent would want their child to attend in one of the districts' schools based on reputation, right?

Based on what this parent sent me via email, parents in these districts might want to take a closer look at the syllabus for the teaching of the Constitution. Just keep in mind, the teaching of the Constitution doesn't seem to be a huge concern to MO DESE, so perhaps it may not be top priority for these schools either. As we contended in our previous posting:

I accessed DESE's site for special day and week celebrations and while it is listed, there is no accompanying information what the Constitution is, what is represents, and how it outlines our important liberties. Perhaps this is because this administration believes the Constitution is a "living document" and as it is currently in flux, students shouldn't be concerned about it much. That's just a guess on my part.

Read the following email from this parent. I think we were right in our guess about the Constitution's importance and meaning not only on the national and state levels, but also on the local level:

As we talked about briefly last week, I am gravely concerned with the course our public education system is putting us on. And to be more accurate, I am concerned with the way social and political issues are framed by certain teachers, because - as we and they know - children are impressionable. The "values" and "principles" they learn early on shape the way they process information and make decisions in future.

My child has attended schools in the Clayton and Parkway School Districts. Two lessons in particular stand out in my mind as the most egregious subversions of the principles of our republic.

While in Clayton School District, she learned that the General Welfare clause of the Constitution is synonymous with "being happy" - i.e. that Congress being able to provide for the general welfare means that Congress should provide for everyone being happy and living a comfortable life. This is neither accurate, nor sustainable as a principle of Constitutional law. It is antithetical to the principles held by those who built what we have today; not because helping others to live a happy life is a bad principle, but because Congress can act only through coercion by force of law and coercion is antithetical to freedom.

Second, while attending a Parkway school, she learned that the Necessary and Proper clause of the Constitution is also known as the "Elastic Clause" because it allows Congress to stretch its powers to pass laws that help people (or something equally as expansive). This fundamentally eviscerates the notion that the Constitution is an enabling document that specifically grants only limited powers to the federal government. It's related to the concept of an "evolving Constitution," which is of course nonsense. As has always been the case with the law in the U.S. the law exists and the courts apply the law to facts, which of course change and differ, over time and from case to case. That the factual circumstances of cases change over time causes evolution in case law, but it is not because our statutes and Constitution "evolve." It is because the facts - to which we apply legal principles to arrive at a legal conclusion - "evolve."

It doesn't take years of education or even deep thought to learn that Constitution does not evolve or that the general welfare is a term used to describe a small set of projects that make everyone better off, not just some at the expense of others.

But that's what they're learning, whether through the ignorance or insidiousness of some teachers and the teacher's union.

I recommend that you read Allan Bloom's critique of John Dewey. Mr. Dewey was instrumental in setting up the teacher's union, was a socialist, and directly stated that they would change America through education. Whatever victory conservatives may score this election, the trajectory of these United States is set by the angle of our youth, who carry our principles forward.

If you are a parent in these districts (or any district for that matter), it might be a good idea to meet with the history/civics teacher and ask his/her understanding and teaching of the Constitution. It might be a good idea to ask DESE as well. We know their understanding and emphasis on "International Education Week"...the US Constitution, not so much.

Classes will be forming within the next few months to teach the Constitution to children and adults. We'll alert you to the time and place of these classes; search your communities for similar classes if you are not in the St. Louis area. If what is being taught in Clayton and Parkway is indicative of teachings throughout Missouri and other states, it is imperative you educate yourself so YOU can teach the Constitution correctly to your child. Otherwise, he/she might believe in the Bobby McFerrin version of the document: "Don't Worry, Be Happy".