Progressive activist confronts St. Louis school board and he has a point

I came across the video below earlier today and it grabbed my attention. The person who delivered this speech is a progressive activist who is trying to start a social justice focused school in St. Louis. I probably have nothing in common with him politically, and yet, I sort of like what he did here.

Chester Asher demanded action from the St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) school board last week. Asher is a board member of Ali Academy, which is described as a “social justice public school” in St. Louis.

Asher claims that only 10% of students in SLPS are able to read at grade level, while just 3% of students are proficient in math…

“Your sham, citywide plan sheds no light and provides no direction,” Asher said. “Our state test scores are a yearly reminder of your dereliction, and the outcomes for our children and communities require your criminal conviction.”

If you watch the video below, it’s clear he’s doing a kind of slam poetry thing. Again, I don’t agree with some of what he’s saying, like the suggestion that having a school named for Thomas Jefferson leads black students to fail, but he’s not wrong about the general condition of St. Louis schools. Results from the latest round of testing were revealed in March.

Missouri students did worse across the board on the latest round of standardized testing released Tuesday, with 112 districts and charter schools scoring low enough to be classified as provisionally accredited.

But the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, or DESE, said it would not downgrade any districts this year because it is the first of a new testing program…

DESE released public school districts’ and charter schools’ Annual Performance Report scores to the public Tuesday afternoon, showing student performance dipping dramatically from pre-pandemic reports.

At the time of the last complete report in 2018, three districts were provisionally accredited and three were unaccredited. All were confined to the state’s urban core in Kansas City and St. Louis.

An earlier report from last year had a bit more detail:

Missouri’s average score for fourth grade math was 232, but that’s a decline of eight points from 2019. In fourth grade reading, the state averages a score of 213, but in 2019, the score was 238.

When it comes to eighth grade math, Missouri averaged a score of 272, a decrease from 281 in 2019. Missouri’s eighth grade reading results were 258 compared to 263 three years ago…

“What do we need to do differently to achieve better results and better outcomes for our kids, and that’s learning from the other states on what they are doing,” State Board of Education member Kerry Casey said.

With more than 30 states ahead of Missouri, the board wants data to see what other states are doing to receive better outcomes.

So the St. Louis Board of Education has spent years and $600,000 coming up with a vague plan to deal with this:

On Tuesday, the St. Louis Board of Education voted to accept a blueprint that had been years in the making and cost more than $600,000.

The citywide plan for education is an effort to address the biggest issues facing St. Louis schools, including population decline and inefficiencies in how charter and traditional schools operate together. But the document the board greenlit Tuesday is light on specifics, instead calling for further planning on a long list of topics…

Over the past year, stakeholders held regular meetings to form the blueprint, including officials from St. Louis Public Schools, some charter schools and others such as union representatives and architects. The board selected Laverne Morrow Carter to facilitate the process. The district paid Carter $225,000, and outside sponsors paid another $400,000.

The lively meetings featured student performances and musical interludes when attendees danced to Marvin Gaye. Participants also gathered in groups to talk about the problems city schools face.

So, again, I probably wouldn’t agree with Chester Asher’s solutions and maybe some of this is cringey, but at least he’s angry. He’s right to be angry. He’s right to ask, “if you cannot read the application, how can you apply for a better job?” He’s right to point out that the people on this board don’t seem to feel much urgency about their failure. Why aren’t there a lot more angry people showing up to tell the board to put a little more pep in their step when it comes to making improvements?

In general, I think the media and even the government have spent the last three years telling parents to shut up and sit down when it comes to education. To the degree people on the right have refused to do that, they’ve been demonized as book banners and extremists and lazy parents who only care about schools as babysitters. Generally, I think talking back to schools is a good thing, especially when they’re failing as badly as most schools have been in the past few years. In short, I’m for more angry parents not less. And that extends to angry parents on the left who also care about their kids success. This may be one of the few things we can still agree on, not the specific solutions but at least the overall goal.

Anyway, here’s the video.