Synopsis: In his St. Louis Business Journal op-ed, Eric Scroggins calls for a 10-year citywide education compact measured by one central outcome: increasing the share of St. Louis children attending excellent schools every year. He argues that SLPS’s Future Ready plan is a necessary step, but financial stability, school closures and leadership changes alone will not deliver better outcomes for students.

The compact would bring together district, charter, private and parochial schools alongside business, civic and philanthropic leaders to expand strong schools, preserve educational facilities, strengthen educator pipelines and connect students to college and careers. Scroggins calls for independent oversight and transparent annual reporting to hold participants accountable, emphasizing that success must be measured by children’s opportunities and learning, not institutional interests or activity alone.

Read full article on St. Louis Business Journal and below: St. Louis needs an education compact — with accountability to children at its core | Opinion

The latest state audit of St. Louis Public Schools should concern everyone who cares about our city. For the second time, the state auditor gave the district the lowest possible rating, “poor,” concluding that the Board of Education has not functioned as an effective governing body.

Current leaders are right that many of the audit’s findings stem from decisions made before they were in charge. They also deserve credit for confronting hard realities through Future Ready SLPS: declining enrollment, too many buildings, unsustainable finances and the need to concentrate resources in stronger schools.
But changing the people responsible for a broken system is not the same as changing the system.

St. Louis has made this mistake before. For more than a decade, SLPS had unusual stability: the same superintendent for 14 years and, for much of that period, state oversight. The district became less chaotic and more financially stable. Those were meaningful accomplishments.

But stability became a proxy for success rather than a means to the more important end: better outcomes for children.

Consider the finances. SLPS built reserves exceeding $200 million even as enrollment declined and academic outcomes remained far below what our children deserve. Now the district is rapidly drawing down those reserves through recurring deficits because its operating model is unsustainable.

A large reserve alongside weak student outcomes, followed by deficit spending because the underlying system was never fundamentally redesigned, is not long-term success. It is what happens when financial stability becomes the goal instead of a tool for improving results.

SLPS’s Future Ready is a necessary response. But it is insufficient.

A district serving fewer students should operate fewer buildings and concentrate resources. But closing schools is easier than creating excellent ones. If families endure disruption only to move from one struggling school to another, St. Louis will have created a smaller district, not a better education system.

And education in St. Louis is no longer synonymous with SLPS. More than 40 percent (and growing) of the city’s public-school students attend charter public schools, while thousands more attend private and parochial schools. Families already experience education as an ecosystem. Our planning, facilities decisions, talent strategies and accountability structures do not.

St. Louis does not suffer from a shortage of plans. We suffer from too many plans whose success is defined by meetings held, people engaged, dollars raised or programs launched rather than improved outcomes.

This time, success should have a number attached to it: The percentage of St. Louis children attending excellent schools — and that number should rise every year.

The 10-year compact

That should be the foundation of a 10-year citywide education compact. District, charter, private and parochial schools; employers; universities; philanthropy; and city leaders should work from one demographic picture and toward measurable goals: grow proven schools, create excellent new ones where gaps exist, preserve educational facilities for strong operators, build shared talent pipelines, and connect every high-school student to college, credentials and meaningful careers.
A compact without accountability would simply become another plan that yields no change.

The institutions and organizations participating in the work should not be the only ones deciding whether we are succeeding. St. Louis needs an independent, cross-sector mechanism to own the scoreboard — establishing transparent measures, publishing results annually and saying plainly when the strategy is not working. The impending A-F school report cards are an important step in that direction.

Organizations like mine have a point of view. We believe families deserve meaningful public-school choices, that strong schools should have opportunities to grow, that persistently low-performing schools should improve or close, and that governance model matters less than whether children are learning. We work with charter public schools and school districts alike in pursuit of those goals. Other institutions bring their own perspectives and interests. None of us should grade ourselves.

That independence matters because a genuine citywide strategy will sometimes require institutions to make decisions that are not in their immediate self-interest. SLPS may need to shrink while a stronger public school grows. A charter school that does not deliver should close. A district school that succeeds should have the opportunity to serve more children. Buildings should remain community educational assets when strong operators need them, regardless of whether they are governed by the district or a nonprofit charter public school board.

Someone has to be responsible for keeping the city focused on the outcomes of children rather than protecting institutions.
The stakes extend far beyond our schools. Another generation of children leaving school underprepared will show up across St. Louis — in crime and public safety, health disparities, workforce shortages, poverty and slower economic growth. That gives all of us a stake in getting this right, and it gives the business community a particular responsibility to insist on clear outcomes, disciplined execution and accountability for results.

The audit is a warning. Future Ready is an encouraging start. We should support current leaders when they make difficult choices while refusing to repeat our longstanding habit of celebrating process as progress.

Stability matters. Collaboration matters. Plans matter. But they are inputs.

The outcome is children in quality schools.

This next chapter should be judged by whether the share of St. Louis children in quality schools rises, year after year — and whether an independent entity has the responsibility and courage to tell us when it does not and to act accordingly.