St. Louis to lose public schools?

I keep an eye out for fascism like mandatory public school uniforms - but often it exposes other woes in America's slaughterhouse school system.

In a story about a right-wing proposal to introduce uniforms in St. Louis public schools, a rather sinister fact emerged.

I remember back in the '90s when Hartford, Connecticut, hired a private firm to run its so-called public schools. This experiment failed almost instantly because of the mismanagement that went along with it.

It's bad enough that school officials use our children for experiments, but this story should have also highlighted a point that almost nobody else noticed: If this program had remained in place, Hartford would have been a city without public schools.

This is significant because it would have robbed students of the right to attend public schools. And that is important because public schools are so central to any modern society and are often the only means for our young people to advance in life. Private schools can exclude. Public schools - at least in theory - cannot.

St. Louis school officials don't seem to get it though.

In 2003, the St. Louis school bored signed a $5,000,000 contract with a New York firm to take over its schools for a year.

That didn't seem to bring about any improvement. One official said the private firm "was called in to improve the school district, and left it in shambles." The school district declined so spectacularly that the state found reason to take over its management.

For some strange reason, I'm not in the least bit surprised by a private firm mismanaging a school system. I had experiences with both public and private schools, and it would be an understatement to say I'm far less impressed with the latter.

Now St. Louis school officials have approved a $750,000 contract with a private firm to take over 17 of the city's schools. (It's unclear if this is the same business that was hired in 2003.) Didn't they learn from their earlier mistake?

It's unknown what led to the first privatization of St. Louis schools. Even if the school system had performed poorly before this takeover, it couldn't have been worse than the suburban school system in northern Kentucky I grew up in. The media has always carried a whiff of elitism that tends to portray suburban schools as better than those in inner cities, but that's another misconception that I've been able to debunk with my own experiences.

Nonetheless, I'm deeply suspicious of any American school system today. This story only reinforces my suspicion.

(Source: http://www.bnd.com/336/story/752095.html)