The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a story today about Charter schools coming to St. Louis. The KIPP Charter school network, boasting an 80 percent college admission in contrast to less than 20% nationally for low-income students, will team up with Washington University in St. Louis as sponsor of 5 new schools to serve urban St. Louis. Additionally, business leaders have pledged $500,000 to support the start-up. The first school to open in 2009 will be a Middle school. In St. Louis Public schools high school graduation rates hovered around 55 percent, with less than half of those students attending a two- or four-year college. But this year after the State takeover and loss of accreditation, no student from St. Louis Public schools will get a diploma. They will receive only a certificate, and I imagine with that comes even lower graduation rates.
So not only do KIPP Charter schools offer a real alternative to the public schools in St. Louis, Charter schools are essentially the ONLY alternative that offers a diploma at the end. The need for alternatives has become very tangible—and while it hurts our students that the system has fallen so far down, the silver lining is that those students who were impaired by failing schools are finally being recognized on a larger scale, and people are working from all aspects of the community to stem the tide of lost potential.
On another note, I came across a St. Louis group on Myspace.com called the Drop-out Project, working to raise awareness about dropouts as individuals with potential and fighting to keep kids staying in or going back to school. Read their mission here and give them some love!
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