Letter from Clay to School Board

June 21, 2004

President Darnetta Clinkscale
St. Louis Board of Education
801 N. 11th Street
St. Louis, Missouri 63101

Dear Ms. Clinkscale:

The School Board is entrusted with this community's most precious resource,
our children. I am extremely disappointed with the results of the completed
state audit of the St. Louis public schools system. The constant turmoil
this year has been in vain. The school district is in the same state of
disarray. Parents are very displeased with the Board's lack of openness and
the lack of community involvement in important decision-making.

The district faces a $38.6 million deficit in the next fiscal year and has
no permanent School Superintendent. The turnaround firm did not eliminate
the financial crisis and did not improve the operation of the St. Louis
Public Schools. The Board promised to use Alvarez & Marsal --the turnaround
firm-- to select a permanent Superintendent. After spending months courting
one individual instead of completing a search with several candidates, the
St. Louis Public School District is faced with another interim
Superintendent.

The St. Louis Board of Education shirked its responsibility to the children
and the St. Louis community against a backdrop of strong public dissension.
The Board closed 16 neighborhood schools, laid off hundreds of employees,
awarded million dollar contracts without competitive bids and offered high
salaries to executives with no school system experience.

I suggest the School Board stop wasting this community's time and money and
do a national search for a Superintendent, focusing on a field of qualified
candidates who have achieved some success in raising test scores, reading
levels and overall academic achievement.

Regrettably, throughout all of the disorder this school year, the children
have suffered the most. In April, the Council of Great City Schools' study
commissioned by Interim Superintendent Roberti reported that the school
district lacks a comprehensive plan for raising student achievement, has no
instructional focus and the instructional staff is poorly organized.

Instead of offering teachers early retirements, I recommend the Board borrow
from the Desegregation fund to address the deficit and leave experienced
teachers in the classrooms. Removing teachers from the schools will merely
create larger class sizes and further diminish the quality of education in
the St. Louis Public Schools.

The $5 million spent on the turnaround firm should have been spent improving
the educational system for St. Louis Public School students. Voters will
remember the events of this year when School Board elections come up in
2005. Neither the Board nor the turnaround firm has produced the results
they promised to the students and the St. Louis community.

The children were shortchanged, the St. Louis taxpayers did not get their
money's worth and the crisis in our public schools continues.

Sincerely,

Wm. Lacy Clay
Member of Congress