1: Educate Jefferson City Representatives and Senators

Our Representatives and Senators are often times unaware of the exact nature of the problems our schools are facing on a continual basis.

2: Change Department of Education rules legislatively. 

DESE, or the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has many rules that negatively impact the urban school districts. 

For instance, I would change the rules for MAP responsibility of all English Language Learners from one year to five years. 

It is impossible to teach a foreign student English in one year so they are proficient enough to read, understand, and take an exam that counts towards the district's accreditation standard. 

This extreme focus forces the district to shift needed resources from one area to concentrate on the foreign language students in an attempt to improve their scores for MAP testing.

3: Alter Foundation Formula to reflect real life scenarios.

Include a real dollar modifier for not only the age of the district, but the condition as well.  The age of the buildings and the district is not enough to consider when the buildings are already crumbling, lead paint covers almost every fence and window, and asbestos is present in over half of the buildings.

Include a real dollar modifier for the unemployment of the school district.  There is a direct correlation between income level and educational costs.  It costs more to educate a poor child than it does a middle class or wealthy child.  

The difference is not the ability of the child, but the educational foundation and the ability of the home to offer help.  Over 90% of poor urban children do not have an age appropriate level book in the home.  This means their base level is much lower than those who have been reading and been read to.

Alter the formula to pay per class room instead of per pupil.  The costs a district has in many cases are fixed costs and do not go away if a child does not attend their classes.  The electric bill, sewer bill, gas bill, phone bill, tax payments, staff salaries, and any other expense will be the same if the class is at 95% capacity or 80% capacity.  It is unfair to penalize a district for irresponsible parenting and poor decisions by children. 

The per class room scenario would be full funding for any classroom with 20 or more students.  This would encourage small class sizes and discourage the closing of any more neighborhood schools.  A neighborhood school may not be successful based on attendance, but it could be based on classrooms.

Alter the formula to stop penalizing the SLPS for busing county children into the city as required by the desegregation lawsuit.

4: Early Childhood Education for 3 & 4 year olds in SLPS.

It is a fact, the children that start earlier in the SLPS do much better than those who do not.  In fact, they score at or above their county peers. 

This early childhood intervention helps to offset the impact of educational opportunity in the homes- like age appropriate books.

5: Pass a statewide moratorium on all Charter Schools.

Charter schools have been failing since their inception.  Not one has met Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP as required by the No Child Left Behind Law using the Missouri School Improvement  testing. 

The charter schools have the same negative impact on the district as using attendance based formulas.  They draw needed revenue from the district because the funding follows the student, but the cost to the district stays fixed. 

This exacerbates the problem of closing more schools and busing more children.  If you want neighborhood schools, then you can not have charter schools.

6: Streamline DESE and the State Board of Education.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is an archaic creation unable to deal with modern day problems with any kind of success or expediency. 

The current board of education members sit for eight year appointments with no accountability.  It is under their watch our district fell to where it is now.  To date, no actions have been taken against their failure to intervene while many districts have fallen and continue to fall to the level of unaccredited.