Kurema Williams is grateful to be transferring her children out of the failing Riverview Gardens school district — even if it means driving them to and from an elementary school in Ferguson-Florissant.
But it’s not her first choice.
Just around the corner from her home is a Lutheran school she wishes her children could attend — if only she had the money
“That has always been my hope,” Williams said.
She says it makes no sense for the Riverview Gardens School District to spend more than $20,000 in tuition for her children to go to school in another district, when they could attend Grace Chapel Lutheran School for less than half that price. But Missouri’s school transfer law doesn’t allow students to transfer to private schools at the public’s expense. Nor does the Missouri Constitution.
“I’m very disgruntled about that,” Williams said. “This is where I want them to attend.”
Whether she knew it or not, Williams was speaking to an issue that has long been entangled in the school transfer debate in the Missouri Legislature, one that involves the broader and politically sticky battle over school choice.
It’s a battle that has paralyzed efforts in the Legislature to make what many regard as a simple fix to the transfer law.
As it is, the statute — upheld in June by the Missouri Supreme Court — will allow more than 2,600 students in the unaccredited Riverview Gardens and Normandy districts to transfer this fall to better public schools in the St. Louis region.
Few like the 20-year-old statute as written. The law is silent on how school districts should manage, limit or control the costs of the student transfers — which are expected to drain more than $35 million from the Normandy and Riverview Gardens districts this school year.
But efforts to add restrictions to the law have been blocked by school choice advocates who want private school options for children in failing public schools.
Such proponents point to thousands of empty seats in religious and independent schools, often in the very neighborhoods where students aren’t getting a quality public education.
Opponents argue that broadening school choice to this degree would further undermine public school districts, partly because private schools don’t have to take children with special needs and those who are more expensive to educate.
The issue is being raised once again as parents like Williams consider their options. For the first time last week, she drove the 15 minutes from her home to see her son and daughter’s new elementary school in the Ferguson-Florissant district. Driving them to Grace Chapel Lutheran School would take less than five minutes.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.
It’s the argument that George Henry, superintendent of Catholic schools for the St. Louis Archdiocese, has made repeatedly before lawmakers in Jefferson City. About 8,000 seats are available in 147 schools throughout the Archdiocese, he’s told them. Those schools are spread throughout 11 counties, but some are in or near the communities being affected by the transfer situation.
There are also empty spots at Lutheran schools. Lutheran High School North enrolls about 50 fewer students than a decade ago, said Tim Hipenbecker, president of the Lutheran High School Association. Tuition is around $11,000, compared to costs that exceed $14,000 for high schools in the Webster Groves, Maplewood-Richmond Heights, Ladue or Pattonville districts, and more than $19,000 for high schools in Clayton or Brentwood.
“If we have quality accredited Lutheran schools, Catholic schools or other private schools in the neighborhoods where families live, why not let parents choose those schools for their child’s education?” Henry said. “You could educate two to three children in one of our schools for what it costs for them to go to a public school. ”
TAPPING A MARKET
In Missouri, the debate surrounding the school transfer statute is bigger than the statute itself.
The law’s seven sentences order unaccredited districts to finance tuition and transportation for children who live within their borders and enroll in higher-performing public schools. The law also gives guidelines for calculating tuition. It ends with, “each pupil shall be free to attend the public school of his or her choice.”
For all the headaches the provision has created, it is embraced by school choice advocates who see the current situation as a potential catalyst for change within public education.
And they won’t give it up — or even water down the law — without a fight.
It’s why Sen. David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, couldn’t even get a hearing last year on a bill that would require the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to set parameters around transfers to avoid situations such as overcrowded classrooms.
“It’s unfortunate that the education reform movement has been in the way of progress that could have been done,” Pearce said.
But advocates of school choice say their proposals ultimately would simplify, rather than complicate, efforts to improve the quality of education for children in failing public schools. Rather than fixating on the expense of improving those districts, they say it makes more sense to tap into the private school market .
Former state Sen. Jane Cunningham, a Republican from Chesterfield who led much of the effort for school choice legislation in recent years, said sending transfer students to private schools is simply more economical.
“To turn our backs on that option that will cost Normandy and Riverview Gardens a whole lot less is just stupidity,” Cunningham said.
DIFFERENT RULES
As it is, private schools are suffering under the law. That’s because it gives private school students living in failing school districts an incentive to leave their private schools and attend a public school in another district free of charge.
According to Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis, 63 students transferring from Normandy and 69 from Riverview Gardens have never been enrolled in public schools in those districts. The estimated tuition and transportation bills for these private school or home-schooled students will cost the two districts $1.5 million.
Pamela Sutphen’s son is among them. She and her husband are still weighing whether to move him from North County Christian School to Parkway Central High School and put the tuition savings into his college fund.
They moved to the Riverview Gardens School District in the 1990s but cannot afford to move now because of falling property values. Sutphen said she tried without success to enroll her son at Clayton High School. Gasoline costs for the daily 21-mile drive to Parkway Central would eat up much of the tuition savings.
“There should be other choices available,” she said.
But altering the law to give parents like the Sutphens a break in private school tuition would hurt public education, Pearce said. For one, private and public schools don’t play by the same rules. Private schools aren’t held accountable through state assessments. They can pick and choose their students.
“No doubt, they do a very good job, but in a way, they can afford to be somewhat choosy,” he said. “They don’t have to educate a student that’s not working out.”
Using public funds for church-based schools is counter to the state constitution’s Blaine Amendment that bars state money from “directly or indirectly” benefiting any religious school.
Archbishop Robert Carlson has called for the repeal of the amendment, but he has said pushing for state tax credits for parents enrolled in private schools may be the more realistic approach.
A SERIOUS CONVERSATION
Ideas such as tax credit-funded scholarships have sparked fierce opposition, and they have died in the Legislature repeatedly. The Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri, backed by billionaire investor Rex Sinquefield, has supported such change dating to 2006.
The group threatened legal action last week against the Mehlville School District if its superintendent didn’t expand the number of seats available to transfer students from Riverview Gardens. And the group has been working closely with parents in both districts who are trying to enroll their children in better schools.
“We’re happy to talk to any breadth of ideas, as long as there’s a high-quality seat for everybody,” said Kate Casas, state director for the alliance.
In a letter to state lawmakers last week, Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro said she hoped the acrimony over the transfer law will trigger “a serious statewide conversation about the issue of failing schools and districts.”
While steering clear of the issue of school choice, Nicastro said the state needs “a comprehensive plan for addressing this need in a systemic, sustainable way.”
Gov. Jay Nixon has said he will not call a special session in September to address the issue.
Pearce expects the transfer debate to be at the forefront when the Legislature convenes in January. Kansas City’s public school district is also unaccredited, though school officials on that side of the state are awaiting the outcome of their own litigation before complying with the statute.
“This is not just an issue in St. Louis or the St. Louis region, it’s a statewide issue,” Pearce said. “When we’re coming up with a solution we have to make sure it works for everybody.”
