[Youth-list] Two St. Louis legislators unveil a plan to tackle public school education reform in St. Louis

[Elizabeth Shack]

Freshmen legislators unveil education plan


  By Shawn Clubb
Tuesday, March 6, 2007 4:29 PM CST

Two St. Louis legislators have unveiled a plan that they hope will improve public education in St. Louis.

One representative of the local teachers union said the union likes some aspects of the plan, but is cautious about others.

State Sen. Jeff Smith and state Rep. Talibdin El-Amin, both Democrats, announced the plan last week.                    '); aCampaigns = new Array(); aCampaigns[998] = 100; aAds = new Array(); nAdsysTime = new Date().getTime()/1000; if ((nAdsysTime >= 1162274400) & (nAdsysTime          























  "With the recent turmoil in the St. Louis Public School System culminating with the State Board of Education's appointment of a transitional school board, the need for comprehensive education reform has become clear," Smith said.

The plan offers some college tuition loan forgiveness to some graduating seniors who agree to teach in districts that are not fully accredited; offers state-funded bonuses to teachers who agree to teach math, science, special education and English as a second language; allows teachers to drop off a tenure track in exchange for the chance to double their salary; and requires teachers to be tested in their content area every five years. Teachers who fail the content twice test may be fired.

Smith said the tuition forgiveness incentive is based on a similar program already used in St. Louis called Teach for America. He said the intent is to upgrade the quality of the teaching pool.

"This will attract the best and the brightest to places where the need and teaching shortages are the greatest," Smith said.

He said he knows teacher testing might be controversial.

"I don't think it's too much to ask that teachers have knowledge in the core subject areas that they're teaching," he said.

The plan calls for increasing the school day by 90 minutes and increasing the school year by 30 days; increasing funding for after-school programs; requiring students to take benchmark tests every six weeks; and offering state-funded pre-school or early childhood education from age 3 for all children who qualify for Title I aid. It also calls for keeping the same teacher with children for three-year blocks.

It calls for funding to help the Department of Social Services locate truant students and return them to school. It also would require students to wear uniforms.

Byron Clemens, first vice president of St. Louis Teachers and School-related Personnel Union, Local 420, said the union likes some of the plan, but has concerns about other parts of it.

"We are pleased to know that two aspects of our five-point plan are included. We believe in zero tolerance when it comes to discipline; we believe in smaller class sizes; we believe in professional development so that we have highly qualified teachers and school employees in all classrooms; we believe in educating the whole child; and we believe that starting at age three, all children should have full access to preschool," Clemens said.

"One major component of our five-point plan is addressing the needs of the whole child. Our students don't exist in a bubble we cannot address some of these issues in isolation without addressing the social problems our kids face every day," he said.

"There are some troubling aspects of the plan, including merit pay and an attack on tenure. However, we are hopeful that the sponsors will actually include education experts as this plan moves forward so that we have something that may work for all children. I think parents will question the merits of a longer school day, extended school year and the call for additional testing." 
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