KWMU To Discuss New “Where We Stand” Report
KWMU Radio (90.7FM) will discuss the Economic and Social Health of St. Louis on Wednesday morning (11/22/06) from 11am to noon (CST) with a repeat at 10pm. Podcasts will also be available for download to your computer.
On-air guests discussing East-West Gateway’s new report “Where We Stand: A Strategic Assessment of the St. Louis Region,
5th Edition“ will be:
Les Sterman
Executive Director
East-West Gateway Council of GovernmentsRichard Rosenfeld
Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice
University of Missouri-St. LouisTodd Swanstrom
Professor of Public Policy Studies
Saint Louis University
Dr. Swanstrom, some of you may recall, is one of my professors at Saint Louis University in the Public Policy Department. This should be an interesting discussion.
Listening to the broadcast, the following exchange took place>
Don Marsh to Les Sterman (a downtown loft dweller), when discussing area residents moving to the City:
“Les, would you have moved to the Loft District if you had school-aged children?”
Les Sterman:
“Probably not.”
Sorry Steve, but we need people to move here with their kids, as its called population growth.
This City will have a glass ceiling until we get better schools.
Marsh’s question bugged me a little. Enough of the Loft District already!
There are 70-something other neighborhoods outside of downtown.
How about asking the question:
“Would you have moved to the city if you still had school-aged children?”
That’s the more relevant question.
Plenty of ciy properties have “lawns”.
Getting to Swanstrom’s point, we need to have “a buzz” about the whole city – not just Wash Ave lofts.
There are parents moving with children into the city — but not enough.
That many of these families are not moving downtown may say more about the cost of downtown housing than its desirability for family life.
C’mon people … enough about the lofts, neighborhoods and buzz. No doubt the disaster known as the SLPS must be corrected. Fixing that mess would help attract families but even more important are the issues of crime (too much) and jobs (too few).
The City is being converted into a retirement community with a few playpins (lofts) for the grandchildren. That’s the recipe for success? With that mix, who cares about schools?
As long as the City is managed by liberals (congressmen, judges, aldermen, etc.) lacking in common sense and who personally benefit from the public’s apathy, expect more of the same. Continuing to discuss micromanagement issues misses the source of the problems and will not lead to solutions. Voters, who continually re-elect these people, are the real problem.
Can someone tell me if any inner-city school district in the country has improved to the point where is is viewed a equal or superior to surrounding school districts?
In otherwords is there a large urban school district that is seen as an assest or draw to the city rather a deterent?
It seems like people think there is this mythical point at which the city schools will suddenly be “good”, so that young middle class white families living in the city will suddenly enroll their kids en-mass, and then the city will be a glorious urban paradise.
But I think Swanstrom stated that no matter how much money and effort you spend on schools, if 95% of the kids get subsidized lunches, the district will never measure up.
Seems to me some of these people complaining about the schools will need to actually make an effort to send their kids to the SLPS for things to start changing.