Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
When it comes to education, St. Louis is facing a problem far more complicated than any advanced trigonometry exam.
This month, the St. Louis County Circuit Court is slated to hear Turner v. School District of Clayton. It’s a case with a long history—and with far-reaching implications. In 2010, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that accredited districts must accept students transferring from failing districts, such as the St. Louis Public Schools and Riverview Gardens School District, and those foundering districts might have to foot the bill.
What the ruling didn’t resolve is how that would happen.
According to a recent study, 15,000-plus city students would transfer to suburban districts if allowed, at an estimated cost of more than $135 million in tuition alone—potentially bankrupting St. Louis’ school district and overcrowding others. It’s an issue that’s spurred legislators and educators to generate a slew of potential answers: charter schools, tax credits for families who send their children to private schools, capping the number of transfers to county districts…
In the meantime, parents are left to sort out what it all means—and decide which schools their children will attend: Public or private? Catholic or independent? Coed or single-sex? The charts in this month’s cover story (p. 57) provide a starting point, listing test scores, tuition, and more.
What these charts won’t tell you is also worth considering: What goes on inside the 21st-century classroom? What about beyond the school’s walls? What motivates students? What skills do students need to navigate today’s workplace? These are all questions we set out to explore, interviewing college deans and high-school principals, historians and psychologists, teachers and students.
At least one expert argues that the current approach to education is wrong altogether. Cathy Davidson, an English professor at Duke University, believes “we are educating youth for the last century, not the one we live in.” In her new book, Now You See It, she contends that a “one-size-fits-all” model—in which students learn in rigid lecture halls and take standardized tests—fails to adapt to how we process information in a digital age. Instead, Davidson suggests, schools should emphasize peer-driven, process-oriented learning. “The more expert we are, the more likely we are to be limited in what we conceive to be the problem,” Davidson notes, “let alone the answer.”
As for St. Louis’ own academic conundrum? Perhaps the students themselves hold the answers—we’re just not asking them the right questions.
