The New Role of the Elected St. Louis School Board

The following viewpoint was submitted to me by a regular reader that I have met in person. Given that we will be electing two new members to the St. Louis Public School board in the face of a state takeover, I thought this was timely and of interest.  The election is this coming Tuesday April 3, 2007.

When reviewing the lists of tasks proposed for the new versus the existing leadership boards, I wondered, “What positive impact and responsibilities would the publicly-elected board have?”The answer appears to be the same function as that of a group of officers elected to represent a large PTA, in its traditional role (see mission of National PTA). Reflecting on what I recall that PTAs of my generation would do for their schools and their district, I don’t recall any PTA being involved in representing much less leading labor and employment matters, nor capital expenditures, nor curriculum, nor any of the functions that are being proposed to be assigned to the new appointed board. The PTA’s role was to act as a macro conduit from the parents to the schools in improving communications and guidance ultimately to the superintendent for the benefit of the students and to act as a conduit from the schools to the parents to improve the parents’ abilities to raise, educate and protect their children…nothing more. They had no taxpayer-funded, salaried staff nor outside legal counsel reporting directly to them, as the present board has. They did not get involved in union negotiations or any personnel decisions, nor did they have a role in reviewing neither curriculum nor vendor contracts. They simply were to act a constructive voice of the parents as well as a constructive voice of the schools.I think the elected board’s new role could be a very positive thing to publicize going forward. The people running for office to serve in this new role of a publicly-elected board would have to ask themselves and sell to the public why they were interested as well as qualified to serve in this more limited, but still very important function. The superintendent and other school officials would find it helpful to utilize this group to download new policies and procedures that were designed to improve classroom and student outcomes, to increase volunteer and community support of existing and new programs and the neighborhood schools themselves and, most importantly, to improve parents’ abilities to, frankly, be excellent parents of their children.

Perhaps the elected board would assign themselves geographic areas of the school district, so every school would have one board member assigned to it to facilitate the dialogue between each parent and school management. If a parent could not make progress on their own to resolve an issue or could not understand how to assist their children on a matter, then the board member could be turned to for following through on the issue, acting as an advocate for the parent but also to help communications and provide assistance on educational and parental topics if indeed that was all that was needed.

In essence, the present and newly elected board members would serve as the vox populi, a role that many could clearly be qualified for.

The author of the above also suggests reading the report; School Boards: Focus on School Performance, Not Money and Patronage
By Paul T. Hill. From the introduction:

Local school boards meet frequently, sometimes more than once each week, and produce a steady stream of policies and initiatives. They spend the bulk of their time on budgetary and personnel issues and on resolving complaints, leaving little time for oversight of instruction or even reviewing data about school performance.

Should Americans be content with the principle that government oversight follows money and jobs? This paper argues to the contrary, that government regulation and oversight are now both excessive in one dimension (budgetary) and shockingly negligent in the other (school performance). It concludes that the work of local school boards can be focused on what children need to know and whether the schools are teaching it effectively. The report has three parts:

• Why the existing structure of oversight does not promote school performance;
• What performance-focused oversight of schools would entail; and
• How the missions and activities of school boards and district central offices must change.

This is certainly all food for thought. What do you think?

Sound Off on St. Louis Public Schools

The other night a friend said I was “suspiciously silent” on the entire St. Louis Schools controversy, knowing I had been on vacation in California when the latest went down. Everyone is likely aware of the events of last week, the state of Missouri taking the final step to strip the St. Louis Public Schools of its accreditation and appoint a 3-member board to run the system, all effective in June. Governor Blunt has appointed suburban sprawl profiteer Rick Sullivan with Mayor Slay and President of the Board of Alderman-elect Lewis Reed to appoint the remaining two.

My silence has more to do with my lack of a clear position on the entire mess. I’m conflicted on events over the last few years leading to this point.

I know this much, Veronica O’Brien still seems to be the most unstable figure in the process as evidenced the recent phone incident with Superintendent Diana Bourisaw. See report from KSDK. Furthermore, we have a school board election just over a week away to replace two members whose terms are ending, yet it is doubtful anyone will pay attention as the elected board will likely be powerless. The local teacher’s union is pushing two candidates who will most likely win.

Legal challenges to the state takeover will also be put forth soon enough. A good thing or simply delaying the inevitable? Meanwhile Mayor Slay is pushing for the right to sponsor additional charter schools in the city.

I’m still researching and talking with various individuals closer to the subject than myself, hoping to form a clear and coherent position on the state and future of our schools. In the meantime, let me know what you think about where we’ve been over the last few years and what you think the future holds.

The Next Conservatives are Pro-Aesthetics?

Last month the Saint Louis Metropolitan Area Council of Conservative Citizens had an interesting post about the end of “new right” and discussing the “next conservatism” and referenced Urban Review STL.  Now, I know what you are thinking, I’m about as conservative as Rush Limbaugh is liberal.

They started off referencing an article in The American Conservative magazine:

If the New Right is dead, or dying, what could be offered in its place? What will be “The Next Conservatism”?

Weyrich and Lind say that it must be a social conservatism, and it must be a cultural movement (not economic) and not a political movement (although the political sphere must not be surrendered).

Themes of “the next conservatism” in article:

– pro-homeschooling
– rejection of mainstream culture
– anti-affirmative action
– anti-political correctness in all forms (e.g. charges of ‘racism’, ’sexism’, etc.)
– anti-abortion
– anti-gay “marriage”
– anti-illegal immigration, anti-amnesty, and pro-reduction in legal immigration
– pro- strong national defense based in America’s concrete interests, but an abandonment of the Bush/neocon Wilsonian foreign policy
– pro-agrarianism
– anti-two party system in Washington
– pro-environmentalism in the sense of pro-conservation
– skeptical of big business
– pro-aesthetics (and disdain of ugly growth, such as strip malls)
– pro-trains and streetcars

This sounds like the Council of Conservative Citizens almost to a tee.

There is so much to talk about in the above list but the short answer is very little of that fits me, except at the end.  Of course, my views on urbanism are not based on aesthics although that does play apart.  It is more about the relationships between buildings and the related public space.  They then go on to reference my site in serveral places, such as here:

The irony here is that URSTL blog has a liberal political bias; however, I think its emphasis on urban uniqueness and its opposition to suburban uglification is more in tune with a properly understood and historically correct version of “conservatism,” (and what Weyrich/Lind think it will be again), that is, opposition to homogenization in all its forms.

It almost sounds as if a rational conversation could be had around common ground but then they speak on trains & streetcars:

Yes, that “preponderance of racial minorities utilizing public transit by necessity” is such a problem in our society.  Too bad decades of policy decisions have created such a necessity.  And too bad they can’t all drive single occupancy SUVs spewing pollutants into the air.

Click here to read the full post from the Saint Louis Metropolitan Area Council of Conservative Citizens.  For the article reference click here.

What Should Lewis Reed’s Agenda Be?

Yesterday my post suggesting President of the Board of Aldermen – elect Lewis Reed address a simple city-wide issue of bike parking has people wondering if that is what we want him and his staff working on. For me and others, bike parking is not just about bike parking. Click here to see that post.

Lewis Reed has four “issues” on his website: Crime & Safety, Responsible Economic Development, Accountability & Leadership and Information Technology and Access to Government. I thought I’d take a look at each of these to see how that fits into the big picture.

CRIME AND SAFETY

The cornerstone of my campaign to become your next President of the Board of Alderman is to work hard to make our city safer and to lessen all types of violent and civil crime. I initiated and helped pass legislation to establish police substations that have expanded community policing to increase public safety citywide. I will lead our effort to ensure the allocation of sufficient resources to our prosecutor’s office so that repeat criminals no longer are on the streets. I worked for full funding of the MAP problem property initiative, which holds property owners financially and personally accountable to their tenants and the city. I concretely support city budgetary allocations that will put 40 new police officers on the street to ensure greater public safety. Another major goal of mine is to help find funding to hire more police officers. As recent history has shown, I will also work closely with our other city and state elected officials for more federal money so that our city is prepared for any type of disaster, natural or man-made.

All of the above is about police and focusing on problem properties, certainly valid approaches. But where is the discussion about increasing safety due to the sheer number of people out on the sidewalks? Active streets are safe streets.

RESPONSIBLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT—NEW OPPORTUNITIES

I have been directly responsible for $1.7 billion dollars in new economic development initiatives along with various infrastructure improvement projects. I introduced, sponsored, and directed the passage of the first Neighborhood Tax Increment Financing legislation in St. Louis City and its largest Community Improvement District (CID), which redeveloped Lafayette Square. Where businesses such as Sqwires and 1111 Mississippi thrive now, once stood vacant, dilapidated factories and lots that were only good for burning tires.

Our neighborhoods are still the greatest nest eggs of opportunity. I will work hard to expand our tax base by offering more affordable housing opportunities in the still depressed areas of our city that have been overlooked for far too long. I want to establish a legislative agenda that meets the needs of our citizens to offer hope and opportunity to increase new businesses and expand existing ones. This is evident in the numerous economic development and derelict property redevelopment bills I have introduced in this session alone that will provide for new housing and business opportunities.

Furthermore, in my aldermanic tenure, my legislative initiatives have brought over 300 new jobs to our city. Thus, I have and will continue to be an advocate for strong, but responsible, development.

I concur that it is our neighborhoods that hold much opportunity. I always love how politicians tally up all the development in their jurisdiction and claim they are responsible. I guess that means that if they hadn’t given incentives it wouldn’t have happened otherwise yet seldom do we see any discussion about the quality of the developments.

I think TIF and CID districts are excellent tools but these are great opportunities to develop zoning overlays and other mechanisms to guide development, hopefully avoiding a project by project fight. Unfortunately, most of the politicos focus simply on giving away tax dollars without any design/policy criteria in the interest of the public.

And finally Reed mentions affordable housing but doesn’t really elaborate. I don’t know that we’ve seen any requirements n in the last eight years for new projects in the 6th ward to have an affordable component. What does affordable housing mean on a city-wide basis?

ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEADERSHIP

The Board of Alderman requires a full-time President and I intend to be exactly that. Board of Aldermen meetings must be administered with the utmost efficiency. Our city faces many unique challenges in the new millennium and consistent proactive leadership at the Board of Aldermen is crucial.

Our city has garnered much positive national and international news in recent years, but in 2001 it also drew negative, even infamous, attention due to lack of compassionate leadership and simple peer respect for all board colleagues and their families.

As Board President, I will work hard to set a tone to ensure that all actions and records of the Board of Alderman, its committees, and the Board of Estimate & Apportionment are accessible and we remain accountable to the citizenry.

This section was largely a dig at Shrewsbury over how he managed the Board of Aldermen, including not allowing an alderwoman to use the restroom while holding a filibuster over redistricting. The last paragraph gets into the next topic of access to government.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR BETTER ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT

Having earned a degree in computer science and working for many years as an IT professional, as an alderman I successfully passed legislation that restructured the city’s arcane computer networking and information system to make St. Louis City government more transparent, accessible, and user-friendly for our constituents. I want to expand on this initiative to have more information readily accessible — including voting records of aldermen and the Board of E&A, campaign finance records, and committee actions.

I strongly advocate more openness government and I want to utilize the continuing advances in technology to streamline government processes and services for its citizens.

While this does not address things out in the streets I do think a more accessible government will help get more people involved in the community. Reed indicates he passed legislation that restructered the city’s system. Really? When will that actually take affect? The city’s “CIN” website is about as arcane as they come and so many departments even fail to tell you who is in charge. Inconsistencies are rampant throughout the website. But is this a matter for the head of the legislative body or should the mayor’s office finally step up to the plate and deal with our city’s website?

In 2005 Shrewsbury and his staff improved the Board of Aldermen website by including more information. There is certainly room for more improvement such as votes by individual aldermen. Another big step would actually be able to include the attachments for board bills — nothing is more frustrating than trying to understand proposed legislation only to find “Attachment A” not attached.

Here are the city-wide issues I see missing from Reed’s website, in no particular order:

• Zoning: Our 1940’s era zoning code encourages suburban development and sends the wrong message to developers about the type of city we want. Reed & Slay need to work with the public, as Kansas City has been doing for the last 18 months, to develop a new zoning code reflecting the communities current wishes for the future. We need zoning which is based on building form, not our current use-based zoning. Furthermore, in 2005 the Board of Aldermen passed the new Land Use plan but by not adoping new zoning the land use plan has no teeth.Furthermore, new zoning can be pro-development. Currently developers are at the whim of individual aldermen if they want to do anything different than what the old zoning allows. With physical development being a big part of what St. Louis will be doing over the next 20 years it only makes sense to give us a good foundation upon which to literally build. With consistent form-based zoning deliniating what it is we are seeking throughout the city it will help developers by knowing what is expected of them. Rewards such as allowing more floors if a developer does other things (underground parking over a blocky base, payments to an affordable housing fund) can improve the quality of new construction without punishing anyone.
• Transportation: Discussion in the city about transportation has focused on how to create more lanes across the Mississippi River into Illinois. What about mass transit? Metro (aka Bi-State) needs a tax increase from the city and county to continue basic operations but I’ve heard nothing out of Reed or Slay on this issue. Furthermore, East-West Gateway has been planning new rail transit for northside and southside, requiring additional funding. Again, leaders in the city have been quite on trying to get the necessary funding. We need some city-wide discussion of transportation issues and solutions.
• Regionalism: Lewis Reed needs to reach out to the rest of the region to build a coalition around issues bigger than the city limits such as transportation. Collectively, our city leaders could be a strong force in the region. One area to address is how municipalities continue to steal sales tax revenue from each other. St. Louis needs to step up our profile in the region.

• Charter Reform: Shrewsbury was a supporter of charter reform until it came to eliminating the post he held. Will Lewis Reed take a similar view of charter reform — change other positions but not mine? I have little confidence that anyone in office currently can really take on the issue of improving city government through charter reform.Of course, my favorite form of charter reform would be to shift our elections to non-partisan, effectively eliminating one election every two years. This would also reduce the stranglehold the local democrats have over the system to further their own personal interests.We have a couple of choices in going non-partisan in our local elections. Under our current system, in a 3-way or more race it is likely the winner would be chosen even without 50% of the vote. It happened that our one 3-way race this week (6th ward) the winner received over 50% of the vote. But had she only received 49% she still would have been declared the winner. If we want the winner to receive 50% or more of the vote we could hold a second vote between the two highest candidates. The better solution is Instant Run-Off elections where voters rank the candidates and:

  “if no candidate receives an overall majority of first preferences the candidates with fewest votes are eliminated one by one, and their votes transferred according to their second and third preferences (and so on) and all votes retallied, until one candidate achieves a majority.”

  Again, I don’t see Reed and the majority of aldermen backing him looking seriously at various proposals to refine our government structure.

My Endorsement for President of the Board of Aldermen

Regular readers know that I love incumbents to be challenged — nothing worse than someone getting elected for a four-year term simply due to the lack of a challenger. I’m also fond of giving the new guy a chance, especially if the incumbent has been in that office a while. So where am I on the race for President of the Board of Aldermen? I’m not a huge booster of incumbent Jim Shrewsbury but I am opposed to Lewis Reed. Let me explain.

I’m going to go right for big issue — race! I personally don’t vote on race and would hope that nobody does. Sadly, the reality is that white & black voters alike do too often vote on race. And candidates on both sides can sometimes use that to their advantage. From PubDef this morning:

Reed is trying to become the first African-American ever elected President of the Board of Aldermen and the first black to unseat a white incumbent in a citywide election in 25 years.

Funny, I thought Reed was trying to become a better President of the Board of Aldermen? I’ve seen similiar statements elsewhere which makes the campaign about race, not city-wide issues. From the St. Louis American on January 3rd:

If Reed beats Shrewsbury on March 6, he and Green would form an African-American majority on E & A. This would be the second time in the city’s history that blacks formed a majority on the city’s chief fiscal board. From 1993 to 1997, Bosley was mayor and Virvus Jones was the city’s first black comptroller.

I may be an exception, but I really don’t care what the race is of my elected officials as long as they are representing the interests of the city. However, I have commented that our elected officials are not fully representative as we do not have any asian or latino representation as well as many of the other ethnicities that make up our population. Everything is black vs. white.

For a number of years now we’ve had a white majority on E&A with Slay & Shrewsbury but that has seemed to make little difference in the final outcome of votes. All three have shown a willingness to vote with or against the others as it should be. Shrewsbury has twice ran for Comptroller against black candidates and lost.
At some point our city must address the issue of race. A city-wide election between a white candidate and a black candidate is not the time to do that. Mayor Slay needs to pick a non-election year and hold some on-going forums to hash out issues and concerns over race. During the election cycle a white candidate simply cannot say the black candidate is taking the black vote for granted and the black candidate can’t help sounding as though the only reason they are running is to shift racial power at city hall.

Both Jim Shrewsbury and Lewis Reed have supporters on their sides that gives me reason to doubt both. Shrewsbury has some of the white good-ole-boy network in his corner while Reed has both black & white political insiders in his corner. Jennifer ‘Drive-Thru’ Florida’s early backing of Reed turned me off right away. Ald. Phyllis ‘Raze Bohemien Hill’ Young supporting Shrewsbury is equally offensive. There are some people, elected & non-elected, backing each candidate that I like and respect so this does little to help in a decision.

Both candidates are political creatures.  Shrewsbury has been in the game longer than Reed giving him some more experience, quite possibly a bad thing.  Shrewsbury as the incumbent came into the race with a huge advantage — only needing to prove why he should remain.  Reed’s task became having to prove why we should dump Shrewsbury and select him, no easy thing to do.  As a result, his campaign has gone to the negative side while Shrewsbury has had the comfort of taking the high road in most cases.

St. Louis Oracle, on his site, had an interesting post about role reversal in this contest, concluding with:

So, in this classic match up, the slick black dude is the proponent of Big Business, tax cuts for the rich, and “trickle-down” economics, while the little nerdy white guy is the true representative of ordinary people. Go figure.

Oracle has also endorsed Shrewsbury, here is a quote from his endorsement:

Shrewsbury is a principled, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense guy who doesn’t “showboat” to the media. Reed has criticized Shrewsbury’s lack of “vision,” without really saying what that means. The contrast is reminiscent of that between Former Mayor Vince Schoemehl and Former County Executive Gene McNary. In describing their joint efforts for the region in the 1980s, Schoemehl explained that McNary “sold the steak,” while Schoemehl “sold the sizzle.” Notably, sizzle-selling Schoemehl’s ward organization backs Reed. But the “vision” thing doesn’t resonate with me. If “vision” means new proposals and new ideas, let’s see them! Reed offers hardly any specifics. The appeal seems to be an attempt to tap into the “style over substance” trend that is infecting society. I don’t buy it.

My reality is that I don’t have high expectations for the issues that matter to me, such as a new zoning code, to be any different regardless of who wins.  However, I think I have a better chance of getting Jim Shrewsbury to listen and be responsive.  He may not look it, but in many respects he is quite progressive minded.  Reed simply has not impressed me to this point and I have no incentive to elect a black man to the position just for the sake of doing so.  Tomorrow vote to re-elect Jim Shrewsbury.