Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Charter Schools Challenged In St. Louis, California, Georgia

A St. Louis school board member challenging the city's charter schools on a legal technicality knows his claims may not go far -- but that hasn't stopped him from fighting.

"I'm not trying to close these schools down," Chad Beffa told The Huffington Post. "I just want to stop the inefficiencies of this mess in the city of St. Louis.

Beffa thinks charter schools, which are publicly funded but can be privately run, have harmed his city's public schools by wasting their money. So last Friday, he sent a note to St. Louis' charter-school proponents saying that the city's recent population loss, as indicated by new census data, makes the operation of charter schools illegal.

As reported by the St. Louis Beacon, Beffa's letter cited Missouri State Law 160.400, which states charter schools are only eligible to open in "a metropolitan school district or in an urban school district containing most or all of a city with a population greater than 350,000 inhabitants." The law already restricted Missouri charter school operation to St. Louis and Kansas City.

Full Article
Source: HuffingtonPost 

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