Teachers unions, lawmakers demand Missouri education commissioner resign

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Kansas City Star: President of Missouri Education Board defends Chris Nicastro amid calls for resignation​

Some lawmakers and teachers’ union leaders on Monday called for Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro’s resignation, citing a [URL="http://www.kansascity.com/2013/12/07/4677672/emails-detail-a-hidden-plan-for.html]report in The Star[/URL] of emails showing a questionable bid process and development of plans for Kansas City Public Schools without the district’s knowledge.

But state school board President Peter Herschend said people are reacting to a planning process for Kansas City that is still evolving and has been — and will be — the responsibility of the state board.

The board has urged the commissioner and the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to bring swift change to the state’s unaccredited school districts, including Kansas City, Herschend said in a prepared statement. This is a time for conversation, he said.

“Some groups are fighting even suggestions of change,” he said. “We ask you that you reserve judgment before any plan has been formulated or even ideas discussed.”

The emails showed a collaboration among Nicastro, the Kauffman and Hall Family foundations and the Indianapolis-based CEE-Trust research group starting in April to prepare a proposal for a new school system for Kansas City.

By the way, that's Kauffman as in the founder of Marian Merrill Dow and the Kansas City Royals, and Hall Family as in the owners of Hallmark Cards, both foundations having been a driving influence in educational improvement across the U.S. What Mrs. Nicasto is proposing is a move to charter schools for the unaccredited public school districts in Kansas City and St. Louis. Both have been without accreditation for over five years, having failed repeatedly to meet state education commission requirements for improvements in services and test scores.

The Kansas City Star did an "exposé" of the "plot" to change the school systems' directions, which just about everybody throughout the state agrees is currently all downhill. Most people in Missouri seem to think Nicastro's is the most sane plan suggested, given that the socialist bureaucracy formed by the tenured administrators and the teachers unions in both cities can't seem to do anything but send money continuously pouring down a black hole. Yet The Star, the unions and the socialst legislators in Jefferson City seem to think what she suggests is horrible.

Personally, I don't think there's any hope for students in either district unless Nicastro's plan is fully implemented. These two districts are display examples of what is wrong with American education today.