The big news in St. Louis City this week is that the State Board of Education announced the creation of a "transitional" oversight board for the St. Louis Public School district, in anticipation of the district failing to maintain even the current provisional accreditation status.

No one who has followed the soap opera that is SLPS over the last several years was really that surprised, although the timing is interesting.  The final report on the district's accreditation review isn't for a couple of weeks yet, and there are elections for two of the seven seats on the SLPS Board in April.  I've not seen any compelling reason why the decision couldn't have waited until after the April elections, but I'm betting there has been some behind-the-scenes "negotiations" involved.

The transitional board, composed of three members (one each selected by Gov. Blunt, Mayor Slay, and Aldermanic Board President Shrewsbury) will be on advisory oversight board on the current elected SLPS Board of Education - until the decision (which appears to have already been made) that the district is unaccredited is announced.  SLPS staff is frantically trying to find anything to get one or two more points on the accreditation scorecard to retain at least provisional accreditation, but the State Board of Education holds a "trump card":  they can simply declare that the districts finances are not sufficient for the current board to govern the district.  Either way, by this time next month, the "transitional" board will become the actual board, and the current elected board will be relegated to an "advisory" role.  They can hold meetings, review budgets, give the state-imposed board advice - but they'll have no decision making authority.

Interestingly, the two Board members who were up for re-election, Bob Archibald (president of the Missouri Historical Society) and Ron Jackson (who's listed as assistant director of St. Louis for Kids), dropped out of the race on Friday, leaving seven almost completely unknown candidates still running for what will now be purely ceremonial positions.  Apparently, the idea of not actually being able to run things any more didn't appeal to them.  Of course, if you believe Bob Archibald, they dropped out of the race because "We did everything we could to make it happen, and now it's going to happen".

This is an astonishingly frank admission, which, if true, means that Mayor Slay's hand-picked board members (Archibald, Jackson, and Board President Veronica O'Brien), have been actively working for several months to make sure that the district wouldn't pass its' accreditation review.  To have elected public officials openly admit that they have been deliberately undermining the very institution that they were sworn to uphold is, while somewhat refreshing, completely unheard of, at least in St. Louis.  It would explain some of Ms. O'Brien's behaviour over the past few months (although my preferred theory is that there's some sort of "paranoia gas" leak in the board president's office - that would not only explain her behaviour, but that of more than one of her predecessors).  And, if this was Mayor Slay's plan all along, it would also explain many of the decisions made in the district over the last few years, such as the replacement of district maintenance and kitchen employees with contractors, the selling off of some of the most valuable school buildings (with restrictions that prevent charter or private schools from using them), etc.

Of course, the announcement immediately brought out all of the "all you state officials are racists" crowd, yelling about how it's a "black district" (ignoring all of the children of European heritage who attend SLPS schools) and that's the only reason that the state board wants the district to fail.  The unions, of course, started ranting about school closings and layoffs, since, as an unaccredited district, students will be free to transfer (alone with their tax dollars) to neighboring districts, there will be fewer students attending SLPS schools, so fewer teachers and staff will be needed.

Lost in all of the shouting is the students - the children of St. Louis, and their families.  This pretty much guarantees that it will be at least a decade before the district recovers, condemning at least one and perhaps two more generations of children to a lifetime of  poverty and involuntary servitude to the government, as they won't have an educational foundation on which to rise above such a fate.  And the City receives yet another black eye, and more families that can will leave the CIty as their children reach school age.

Congratulations, Mayor Slay - mission accomplished.