The myriad crises currently rocking St. Louis public schools 鈥 the lack of transportation to get kids to class, the district鈥檚 sudden plunge into a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, the suspension of the superintendent over questionable hiring and contracting 鈥 intersect in one place: an elected school board that was apparently asleep at the switch and is now refusing to talk about any of it.
That the school district is in this multi-layered mess just five years after the state relinquished its oversight and returned power to the seven-member elected board doesn鈥檛 exactly inspire confidence in that decision. But returning city schools to the control of a distant and often hostile seat of state government is less than an ideal option.
Here鈥檚 an alternative that鈥檚 worth talking about: putting the school system under the control of the mayor鈥檚 office, as has been done in some other cities around the country in recent decades to bring accountability to troubled districts.
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Stay with us here. We鈥檙e not suggesting this is something that should happen next week 鈥 or necessarily at all. But the demonstrative poor management of the district since the locally elected board re-took power in 2019 makes it an option that should at least be explored.
The complete collapse of the district鈥檚 student-transportation system just before the current school year began Aug. 19 was in part because of workforce issues beyond the school board鈥檚 control. But those same issues affect other districts that have managed to deal with them. Why has the board so spectacularly failed on that front?
The current situation 鈥 students being ferried to school on buses, taxis, ride services and carpooling parents sometimes driving more kids than is safe 鈥 is, as one official told the Post-Dispatch鈥檚 Blythe Bernhard, 鈥渁 tragedy waiting to happen.鈥
The school board owes the public an explanation for why it wasn鈥檛 ready for this. Instead, the board has stonewalled the media and even gagged contractors who work with the district. 鈥淎t this point, we can鈥檛 speak,鈥 one vendor told Bernhard. 鈥淚f I could, I would. We鈥檙e under very, very strict guidelines to not speak on any dealings with SLPS. Everything is working itself out.鈥
There鈥檚 precious little indication of that.
Even as the transportation mess has unfolded, the board suspended the superintendent it hired in 2022, Keisha Scarlett, as it investigates her pattern of steering jobs and contracts 鈥 many of which appear on their face to be make-work excuses to spend public money 鈥 to friends and colleagues from her past positions.
The board was right to suspend Scarlett over her apparent cronyism. Which makes its decision to appoint Scarlett鈥檚 deputy, friend and closest insider-hire, Millicent Borishade, as acting superintendent a truly baffling one. At last report, the board was considering hiring a $185-an-hour consultant to assist Borishade in running the office.
With that kind of fiscal decision-making at play, it鈥檚 no wonder the district has managed to go from having a $17 million surplus in its general operating budget a year ago to a projected $35 million deficit now. Yes, much of that is attributable to the transportation crisis. But, again, how did the board get caught so off-guard by the situation?
Mayoral control of school districts is a trend that started in some cities in the 1990s, as urban schools struggled with poor performance under elected boards. Today, about a dozen major cities use various models of that approach, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago.
The models differ, but generally it gives the mayor the authority to put school district leaders in place, either directly or through a board or panel appointed by the mayor.
Some districts have seen improved fiscal and academic performance under such a structure, though critics say it creates its own problems, including the perceived loss of direct public control over schools. Chicago is in the process of returning to a traditional elected school board model largely for that reason.
On the other hand, school board elections draw notoriously few voters and little public interest. How many people reading this editorial can name even a single member of the current board? And the fact that there are multiple board members makes it easy for individual members to keep their heads down and avoid taking responsibility for board failures.
In contrast, the mayor is, by definition, the most visible public official in any city. Critics of Mayor Tishaura Jones may chafe at the idea of giving her control over still more of the public process, but that misses the point. Putting the mayor 鈥 any mayor 鈥 in charge of schools leaves no ambiguity about where the buck stops when the snafus start.
St. Louis students deserve a functioning school system. That won鈥檛 happen as long as it鈥檚 run by a board that has shown itself to be incompetent but is unlikely to be punished at the polls for it. Mayoral control of the public school system is an option St. Louis should be talking about.