Beacon Roundtable for May 10
In this week's Beacon Roundtable, Dick Weiss, Dale Singer, Jo Mannies and Robert Duffy sit down to talk about Imagine Schools' closure, the Missouri budget and the Beacon Festival.
In this week's Beacon Roundtable, Dick Weiss, Dale Singer, Jo Mannies and Robert Duffy sit down to talk about Imagine Schools' closure, the Missouri budget and the Beacon Festival.
The next 10 days may determine whether students who had been attending Imagine schools will be able to move as a group to so-called "choice schools" that will be part of the St. Louis Public Schools system.
As crowds of parents and students attended an enrollment fair Saturday to find new places to enroll this fall, boards of the Imagine schools are working to see if they can keep the schools open this fall with a new sponsor and new management.
In this week's Beacon Roundtable, Dick Weiss, Dale Singer, Jo Mannies and Jason Rosenbaum sit down to talk about Imagine Schools, a bill to curtail sexual-orientation discussion in schools and President Obama's response to Todd Akin's comparison of federal student loan programs to a "stage three cancer of socialism."
The recent news of the closures of all six Imagine Schools, Inc.-operated charter schools in St. Louis has sparked renewed cries that the charter school model of public education has failed and is not a viable option for Missouri's families. What these closures show, in fact, is that the exact opposite is true.
The Missouri state Board of Education voted unanimously to shut the schools down one day after it became their interim sponsor. They had been criticized for poor academic performance and questionable financial management. School officials say they are looking into options that could keep the schools open despite the state board vote.
The Missouri state Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to revoke the charters of all Imagine schools in St. Louis, closing them by the end of the current school year.
The university could decide to withdraw from the charter school business altogether, but a spokesman said it’s too early to decide whether that is the course it will take.
Douglas Thaman, executive director of Missouri Charter Public School Association, says Imagine Schools are not meeting acceptable standards of academic performance.