Chess For All

According to an article in The United States Chess Federation, a new multi-purpose chess club has opened its doors in St. Louis. Come to find out, the creator is the same Rex Sinquefield that has been creating news in Missouri. Many people criticize issues he takes or how he goes about them, but I have always felt he truly believes in his causes and wants to make a difference. People who say he is only out there for his own benefit make no sense. He wants to help education in Missouri, and while some may disagree with his methods, how would be benefit from it at all? He has no children in school anymore but has been through the rough and tough in his own childhood. Helping children in need is his main agenda and that is indisputable.

Now, he has used his own money to create a state of the art chess club that will not only be a place for chess players to convene, but it will also serve as a medium to encourage school age children to take up the game or to continue it. Chess is a strategic game and can help children with all areas in school. What will the critics come up with now?

The club’s existence is primarily due to the generosity and passion of one man, Rex Sinquefield. Known in Missouri for his dedication to the advancement of educational initiatives, he explained his reason for opening this beautiful chess and scholastic center. “Kids who get into chess benefit in all sorts of ways,” he said, noting that the main purpose of the center is to support scholastic chess. However, “St. Louis has lacked a centralized resource to teach kids and to teach teachers.”

The First Move program of America’s Foundation for Chess has begun to be utilized by a few schools in St. Louis, and it is the goal of the St. Louis Chess and Scholastic Center to increase this presence. Part of the club’s mission statement notes that the group “is committed to supporting those chess programs that already exist in area schools, while encouraging the development of new programs within regular school curricula.”

Check out St. Louis' new chess club on Maryland Ave. in the Central West End. The Chess Club and Scholastic Center is beautiful and working toward bringing more chess programs to the local schools. Beginner or Grand Master, stop by and get involved in this movement!

More mismanagement from SLPS

Whether the problem is under-qualification or selfishness, the management of the St. Louis Public School District is unacceptable and continues to be extremely detrimental to both students and the community. The latest distress comes from funding cuts of school libraries. Other private and charter schools in the area are able to fund superior library programs on an even tighter budgets. Yet Rick Sullivan, the CEO of the Special Administrative Board that made this regrettable cutback, continues to repeat the untrue and scapegoat ‘lack of funds’ excuse. The school district needs to be held accountable for their funding decisions. Why would we invest more in a system that has continually proven to fail to distribute it properly?

School Choice in Florida makes headway

From the Penn Patriot:
The School Choice movement is growing in Florida, with Gov. Charlie Christ signing into law a $30 million expansion of the state's existing program.The expansion will provide scholarships to send an estimated 6,000 low-income children to better schools.Meanwhile back in Pennsylvania, the education lobby puts up roadblocks to School Choice, fearing that competition would expose the inadequacies of the existing public school monopoly.To learn more about school choice in Pennsylvania, visit SchoolChoiceSaves.org

Florida is really leading the way in the realm of school choice. It occurs to me that the states that really give school choice a chance end up loving it and seeing the value, and the states that seem bent in opposition are just the ones who haven’t had the guts to try it.
St. Louis Public Schools are starting to complain about how much money they need to make their schools better, yet they don’t want to go down the path of more choices for students. Florida, though, has seen $150 million in savings to the state budget. 10,000 families applied for scholarships in Florida over the funding cap, leading Democrats and Republicans alike to call for an expansion of the program.
Those who see any sort of voucher, tuition tax credit or scholarship program as a way for the rich to get a break on a private school will be shocked to note that the average household income for scholarship recipients (for a family of four) is $24,000.
This is really great news and a testament to the green-eggs-and-ham of school choice.
Try it, try it and you may! Try it, and you may, I say!

Teacher's Unions at it again!

Parents have been struggling for years to get choices for their children's education. In some states, they have been successful, while other states, they have not. Missouri, unfortunately, has not had many big successes. We do have some great charter schools in our two biggest cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, but they cannot serve everyone. Teacher Unions have been at the forefront of every legislative battle against choice. Two legislative sessions ago, they fought and won to keep lower income families from getting scholarships to use at their school of choice, and this year, they won to keep thousands of special needs children in schools that will only fail them. They will stop at nothing to keep the status quo, whether the children are suffering or not. Their arguments don't change much, but their all powerful lobbying group has great influence at the capital. We are gaining momentum in the parade for choice and I know it will come soon...I must remain optimistic.
Florida's teacher unions are now causing havoc for those lower income families, who were stuck in failing schools, but finally were given a shot. Newsweek's "Choice Under Fire, Yet Again: Teachers Unions Fighting School Choice for the Children of Poor Families in Florida Use 19th Century Bigotry and 21st Century Obscurantism"
Florida's Supreme Court last week was the latest venue for the movable feast of meretricious arguments by which public-school teachers unions wage war in any city or state where families of poor children try to escape from failing public schools. The attack on Florida's school-choice program relied on 19th-century bigotry and 21st-century obscurantism.
Florida's Opportunity Scholarships, the nation's first statewide school-choice program, was enacted in 1999 to ameliorate a gross civil-rights injustice--the fact that poor families whose children are trapped in terrible schools are helpless to prevent their children's life chances from being blighted. The program empowers students to transfer from failing schools, as defined by set criteria, to the public or private school of their choice.
Teachers unions immediately filed suit to block this escape route--this underground railroad, if you will--from the public-school plantation.

The rest of the article goes over the weak arguments the unions have...and why they are so weak...Why they must fight against the children, will never make sense to me. At least I can sleep at night knowing there are people and organizations willing to put their neck out and do something for these kids.

However, according to Earth Times,

Florida Governor Charlie Crist this week signed into law a sweeping $30 million expansion of the state's popular Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program, opening the doors of educational opportunity to an estimated 6,000 additional low-income children.The Alliance for School Choice - the nation's largest nonprofit organization promoting school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs - hailed Governor Crist's action and praised his commitment to providing a quality education for all Florida children. Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program is the largest program of its kind, and the Sunshine State has provided more children with enhanced educational opportunities than any other state in the nation.

Hooray!

It's catching on...

The school choice movement is spreading. People are realizing the schools their children are allotted to are not performing up to their standards. People without children are realizing that without high performing public schools, our country's productivity is riding downhill, fast. Last year, I read a study the Show Me Institute put out that showed overwhelming support for choice in Missouri. While the majority of the legislature is stuck voting with the NEA's of the world leading their puppet strings, there are a few standing up for what they know is not only effective and necessary, but the right thing to do. I have faith eventually the rest will come around. The teacher unions are finally getting people and organizations to stand up against them. Choice won't kill the public schools, it will only help them. Oklahoma, not far from us, is realizing they want some choice as well. This was from an Oklahoma news source: