It’s often useful to mention that I went to public school in Missouri; it’s technically true, and helps burnish my populist credentials. But it’s also true that my particular school district was a lot closer to Dalton or Exeter than to almost anywhere else in the state.
Hi Jesse, since you are continuing to go after people on Nextdoor, but haven't responded to me there, I'll post my comment here and reiterate my invitation to discuss my kids' school district in person over coffee if you are still in STL:
Jesse, I'm asking you to take a step back and reflect on your role in this situation. You and others successfully shouted down the board, yet you are still attacking them. It is not "roving public interest journalis[m]" to go around making unfounded allegations against school board members and inventing nefarious motivations and plans so you can slander people on your Substack.
The board has said the next step is a strategic long term facilities plan. I'd expect you to have that information, given you say you are a journalist, rather than going to Nextdoor admitting you don't know what is going on, while nevertheless saying we should get rid of our whole board (and Superintendent!). We should replace them with someone to your liking who will do this thankless unpaid job?
I am baffled by your claims to civility and your thanking someone for her service on the board who you have repeatedly attacked with no evidence.
You, like others, gleefully repeat that enrollment is down despite having been told enrollment is expected to increase. (Don't know if you follow the MO legislature from NY, but if the Rs pass open enrollment--which I hope they don't because it will devastate rural schools--Clayton enrollment will increase *even more* than projected.) Either way, you are joined by the school privatizers who want money out of public schools and into private ones in your celebration of the--likely temporary--decreased enrollment and your certainty that a public school district acquiring land will be bad for taxpayers.
Your unfounded attacks are reminiscent of those from out-of-district book banners happening in Missouri and across the country. You and all the tax prioritizers should know that attacks on school boards are the kind of thing a family will google up before moving here, and thus are not awesome for increasing your precious tax base.
Hi Bridgette, appreciate your reaching out! Let's definitely sit down when I'm back in town. I haven't felt that I've been "going after" people so much as trying to restore the democratic process that should have been fundamental all along! I understand that these are tough, divisive issues though and that a lot of parents feel like they're fighting for their kids (not quite what's involved in this case, IMHO).
Similarly, I don't feel that we critics so much "shouted down" the school board as helped hit the brakes on a dramatic epochal decision that simply needed democratic buy-in before it could move forward. I've said repeatedly that I suspect the board was really trying to do the visionary statesmanlike thing with the best of intentions, and truly thought it best to just do what they thought was right in one fell swoop before community opposition could arise. But it was the wrong call, it unfortunately poisoned the well, and even though the deal was abruptly terminated at the last minute there remain lingering questions of trust and transparency and whether the same thing might happen again.
I don't think any of that is slanderous or inappropriate to worry about, and do expect Clayton will soon be forced to face larger existential questions of mergers or consolidation or the open enrollment legislation you mention. These are tough issues that need to be hashed out in the open, and at the ballot box. It's not about lowering taxes, it's about making sure citizens are represented in the painful process ahead. That the present powers that be, in doing what they genuinely felt was right, opted for secrecy speaks less to bad intentions than questionable judgment. In moving forward, and having the hard conversations transparently, it would be best for the district to turn the page.
Even though you are back in NY so we can’t get coffee, we could use the magic of the internet for you to Zoom back into Missouri. I don’t have another proposal for how to make you think of the people you yell at on the internet as fellow thinking humans.
This is very interesting, thank you. Is Ladue similar to Clayton? I met one guy from St. Louis in the Ivy League. He went to the John Burroughs School. But his parents were from Asia. That is probably more typical profile for the present-day Ivy League than that of anyone who happened to grow up within the same ZIP Code as T.S. Eliot or have any of the same connections that once linked the Eliots, St. Louis and Harvard.
Generally speaking the most desirable real estate in the St. Louis area is known as the central corridor, extending west from the tony Central West End neighborhood by Forest Park in St. Louis City proper through Clayton, which is the county seat, and through Ladue on Clayton's western border. Further west is "West County," which is still affluent but perhaps somewhat less cosmopolitan. Ladue is St. Louis' other "leading outpost of Richistan," it's a very nice bucolic area with lots of winding roads and mansions on huge lots, while Clayton is much denser and more urban with the region's true commercial downtown. Ladue tends to look more stereotypically rich than most of Clayton, but might come across as a bit stuffy country club to professionals coming to STL from Chicago, New York, Boston, etc., who tend to prefer Clayton or the Central West End. Clayton and Ladue are traditional rivals in school sports, we used to say "La-who?" and they would call us "Gayton," though surely that is not said anymore.
It's true that there are subtle distinctions to be made between "undocumented" immigrants and people applying for asylum who are technically allowed to stay until a hearing many years down the road who might be said to be "documented," but the asylum process is being gamed and abused so much that I don't think it's that meaningful a distinction. I'd want to see your stats about rates of deportation, but would argue that the bottom line is that something like 10 million migrants have arrived since Biden took office and there's no sign of the unprecedented influx slowing down. If the administration wanted to stop the flow they have options that they've chosen not to exercise.
This report shows very strong continuity between Biden and trump immigration policy. Any increases in entry are due to the end of Title 42, which could not continue past the declaration of the official end of the covid emergency in May 2023. In his current immigration deal, Biden is trying to give the president title 42 powers he can invoke at will, but he doesn't currently have that under the law. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-three-immigration-record
Now I want to know the next chapter, so i hope you keep us updated!
See addendum above! In short, the people won the battle but not yet the war.
Absolutely!
Hi Jesse, since you are continuing to go after people on Nextdoor, but haven't responded to me there, I'll post my comment here and reiterate my invitation to discuss my kids' school district in person over coffee if you are still in STL:
Jesse, I'm asking you to take a step back and reflect on your role in this situation. You and others successfully shouted down the board, yet you are still attacking them. It is not "roving public interest journalis[m]" to go around making unfounded allegations against school board members and inventing nefarious motivations and plans so you can slander people on your Substack.
The board has said the next step is a strategic long term facilities plan. I'd expect you to have that information, given you say you are a journalist, rather than going to Nextdoor admitting you don't know what is going on, while nevertheless saying we should get rid of our whole board (and Superintendent!). We should replace them with someone to your liking who will do this thankless unpaid job?
I am baffled by your claims to civility and your thanking someone for her service on the board who you have repeatedly attacked with no evidence.
You, like others, gleefully repeat that enrollment is down despite having been told enrollment is expected to increase. (Don't know if you follow the MO legislature from NY, but if the Rs pass open enrollment--which I hope they don't because it will devastate rural schools--Clayton enrollment will increase *even more* than projected.) Either way, you are joined by the school privatizers who want money out of public schools and into private ones in your celebration of the--likely temporary--decreased enrollment and your certainty that a public school district acquiring land will be bad for taxpayers.
Your unfounded attacks are reminiscent of those from out-of-district book banners happening in Missouri and across the country. You and all the tax prioritizers should know that attacks on school boards are the kind of thing a family will google up before moving here, and thus are not awesome for increasing your precious tax base.
Hi Bridgette, appreciate your reaching out! Let's definitely sit down when I'm back in town. I haven't felt that I've been "going after" people so much as trying to restore the democratic process that should have been fundamental all along! I understand that these are tough, divisive issues though and that a lot of parents feel like they're fighting for their kids (not quite what's involved in this case, IMHO).
Similarly, I don't feel that we critics so much "shouted down" the school board as helped hit the brakes on a dramatic epochal decision that simply needed democratic buy-in before it could move forward. I've said repeatedly that I suspect the board was really trying to do the visionary statesmanlike thing with the best of intentions, and truly thought it best to just do what they thought was right in one fell swoop before community opposition could arise. But it was the wrong call, it unfortunately poisoned the well, and even though the deal was abruptly terminated at the last minute there remain lingering questions of trust and transparency and whether the same thing might happen again.
I don't think any of that is slanderous or inappropriate to worry about, and do expect Clayton will soon be forced to face larger existential questions of mergers or consolidation or the open enrollment legislation you mention. These are tough issues that need to be hashed out in the open, and at the ballot box. It's not about lowering taxes, it's about making sure citizens are represented in the painful process ahead. That the present powers that be, in doing what they genuinely felt was right, opted for secrecy speaks less to bad intentions than questionable judgment. In moving forward, and having the hard conversations transparently, it would be best for the district to turn the page.
Even though you are back in NY so we can’t get coffee, we could use the magic of the internet for you to Zoom back into Missouri. I don’t have another proposal for how to make you think of the people you yell at on the internet as fellow thinking humans.
This is very interesting, thank you. Is Ladue similar to Clayton? I met one guy from St. Louis in the Ivy League. He went to the John Burroughs School. But his parents were from Asia. That is probably more typical profile for the present-day Ivy League than that of anyone who happened to grow up within the same ZIP Code as T.S. Eliot or have any of the same connections that once linked the Eliots, St. Louis and Harvard.
Generally speaking the most desirable real estate in the St. Louis area is known as the central corridor, extending west from the tony Central West End neighborhood by Forest Park in St. Louis City proper through Clayton, which is the county seat, and through Ladue on Clayton's western border. Further west is "West County," which is still affluent but perhaps somewhat less cosmopolitan. Ladue is St. Louis' other "leading outpost of Richistan," it's a very nice bucolic area with lots of winding roads and mansions on huge lots, while Clayton is much denser and more urban with the region's true commercial downtown. Ladue tends to look more stereotypically rich than most of Clayton, but might come across as a bit stuffy country club to professionals coming to STL from Chicago, New York, Boston, etc., who tend to prefer Clayton or the Central West End. Clayton and Ladue are traditional rivals in school sports, we used to say "La-who?" and they would call us "Gayton," though surely that is not said anymore.
The Biden administration isn't ushering in undocumented immigrants though. They're deporting ppl at rates significantly higher than Trump did
It's true that there are subtle distinctions to be made between "undocumented" immigrants and people applying for asylum who are technically allowed to stay until a hearing many years down the road who might be said to be "documented," but the asylum process is being gamed and abused so much that I don't think it's that meaningful a distinction. I'd want to see your stats about rates of deportation, but would argue that the bottom line is that something like 10 million migrants have arrived since Biden took office and there's no sign of the unprecedented influx slowing down. If the administration wanted to stop the flow they have options that they've chosen not to exercise.
This report shows very strong continuity between Biden and trump immigration policy. Any increases in entry are due to the end of Title 42, which could not continue past the declaration of the official end of the covid emergency in May 2023. In his current immigration deal, Biden is trying to give the president title 42 powers he can invoke at will, but he doesn't currently have that under the law. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-three-immigration-record