In the Aftermath of a State Takeover of a School District

The Discourses of Educational Governance

Americans deeply believe in local control of education (Burns, 2010; Tracy, 2010). Indeed, in the United States, elected school boards have historically governed local school districts. However, as part of the neoliberal era of accountability and standards, the educational landscape has changed (Carr & Porfilio, 2011; Collins, 2001; Lipman, 2007; Saltman, 2007). Based on the principle that the markets can and should be in charge of social goods, neoliberalism values competitive markets and the freedom of individual choice within them and devalues governmental attempts to provide social resources (Harvey, 2005; Hursh & Martina, 2003; Kumashiro, 2008). In the education sector, neoliberal policies are enacted in many different shapes and forms: turning “failing” schools into charter schools; outsourcing curriculum and assessments to large publishing companies; outsourcing food preparation and custodial services; performance pay; and, the focus of this article, through shifting governance from elected school boards to political appointees.

Much of the effectiveness of neoliberal educational policies has to do with the discursive stronghold they have taken in the American psyche. The discourse practices of accountability, choice, competition, testing, and efficiency have gained credibility and become naturalized or seen as “just the ways things are” (Foucault, 1972; Kumashiro, 2008). Because discourse practices both reflect and construct social reality, we see how these frames are enacted through federal, state, and local policies and which, in turn, reinforce the frames (Fairclough, 1995). As Edelman (1988) wrote, “A policy . . . is a creation of the language used to depict it; its identification is a political act, not a recognition of the fact” (p. 31). Indeed, the key to privatization is the discourse of choice and the assumption that if each individual makes the right choice, the greatest number of individuals will be served (Dingerson, Miner, Peterson, & Walters, 2008). However, in a market-based system, choices are cloaked with hidden costs of goods and services (e.g., transportation, school supplies, and materials) as well as the false promises of educational equity and a shrinking democracy. As the mantra of “choice” is used repeatedly in the public sphere to convince parents of their right to choose a school, silenced is the idea that public education should be equitable and fully funded. This ideological foundation paves the way for reforms that would otherwise be deemed unacceptable—for instance, the dissolution of elected school boards—to be carried out with little resistance. The grave danger of neoliberal educational policies is that they destroy the public forums where decisions of social import can be democratically resolved (Henig, 1994; Lipman, 2007).

Among this wave of reforms is the decreasing role of local elected school boards in urban districts. The mayor of Boston, in 1992, led this initiative when he took over the Boston Public Schools, opening the door for other mayoral controlled districts. And 11 urban districts have followed suit—among them are Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia (McGlynn, 2010). No Child Left Behind, in 2002, further buttressed this shift in educational governance when the policy authorized states to takeover local school districts that fail to meet high standards. With this authorization, city and state takeovers have become fashionable school reform strategies (e.g., Chambers, 2006; McGlynn, 2010; Wong, Shen, Anagnostopoulos, & Rutledge, 2007; Yang, 2010). More recently, U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, pledged to increase the number of school districts that are run by mayors. In his words, “At the end of my tenure, if only seven mayors are in control, I think I will have failed” (Williams, 2009).

The basic argument in favor of state and city intervention is that politically appointed (rather than elected) boards are able to run schools more effectively, like businesses (e.g., Hunter & Swann, 1999; Wong & Shen, 2003). Noguera (2003) has argued that mayors may be politically positioned so as to leverage more resources for school districts. However, proponents of elected school boards stand by the important role elected boards play in encouraging participation in the educational process. Advocates of elected boards point to research that demonstrates that appointed boards may have some impact in the areas of finance, management, and school facilities, but are ineffectual in the area of academics (Timar, 2003). Furthermore, they argue that a board of people elected by citizens is more accountable and transparent to the public and, when given equitable resources, can effectively govern public schools (Ravitch, 2010).

Chicago Public Schools has been used as the basis of the Obama-Duncan educational policy (Carr & Porfilio, 2011; Lipman, 2004). Although Renaissance 2010 has been touted as successful in terms of creating a more “global city,” critics of this set of policies point out the negative outcomes of these reforms. Outcomes that include increased gentrification, violence, militarization of schools, overcrowding of schools, and decreased parental and community involvement in schools. All the while, there is very little evidence that student learning has increased (Brown, Gutstein, & Lipman, 2009).

Neoliberal policies have effectively created a “manufactured crisis” (Berliner & Biddle, 1996) in public education. In this context, and especially in light of the social problems that urban schools face, the promise of changing governance from elected school boards to appointed boards often appears to be a magic solution.

A Brief History of the “Crisis” in SLPS

“The public schools are in a state of crisis,” asserts St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, in the context of deliberations about a state-takeover of the provisionally accredited SLPS (Slay, 2006a). Between December 2006 and February 2007, stakeholders on all sides of the issues repeatedly referred to the SLPS as in “crisis.” It is important to put the district in a historical context to understand how this crisis was constructed. A great deal has been written about the educational and political landscape of St. Louis, Missouri, and I provide only a brief review here (e.g., Ayres-Salamon, 2004; Heaney & Uchitelle, 2004; Morris, 2001; Portz, Stein, & Jones, 1999; Stuart-Wells, 2002; Stuart-Wells & Crain, 1999).

St. Louis has been described as having a Southern segregation legacy with a Northern political geography (Heaney & Uchitelle, 2004; Stuart-Wells & Crain, 1999). The city has been characterized as maintaining the status quo with regard to inequities in education, housing, and employment despite reform efforts such as school desegregation (e.g., Morris, 2001; Stuart-Wells & Crain, 1999). The history of race and public education in St. Louis is interwoven with the history of residential segregation (Portz, Stein, & Jones, 1999).

SLPS, defined by student numbers, was a thriving district in the 1960s. However, the district began a decline as more affluent residents (the majority of whom were White) moved to the suburbs or placed their children in the parochial school system. Shifting demographics from White flight eventually led to one of the largest desegregation agreements in the nation. Part of the 1981 desegregation agreement established a voluntary transfer program between the city and county schools; thousands of Black city parents enrolled their children in county schools. A few hundred White county parents enrolled their children in the new city “magnet” schools. The desegregation agreement also brought a complex funding formula designed to minimize the impact of the loss of enrollment in city schools (Downs, 2009).

In 1999, with all parties disillusioned with the continuing agreement, the desegregation case was settled. The state of Missouri agreed to distribute US$180 million to SLPS, to be paid over 11 years, for the construction of new schools to accommodate students returning from the voluntary transfer program. However, many of the suburban schools continued to voluntarily accept city students, and there was no need to build new city schools. ¹ The settlement also provided a school funding formula that would ensure SLPS enough money for annual operations. In the 1st year after the settlement, the state provided money according to that formula. However, soon after, the state changed the formula and decreased funding several times. In 2003, the superintendent of SLPS, Cleveland Hammonds, announced that the district was US$55 million in debt.

Coincidentally, provisions within NCLB at the national level, and the difficulty of many urban districts including St. Louis to meet adequate yearly progress requirements, created a sense of mounting academic failure. At about the same time, the mayor of St. Louis, supported by a group of influential businessmen, became interested in urban revitalization; new sports venues were built, and old factories were bought and converted to condos and office space. Echoing a national trend toward privatizing education in urban districts, schools became central in the mayor’s efforts to make St. Louis a global city.

With an eye on the four open seats on the seven-member elected school board, the mayor and his staff handpicked four candidates, who were promoted as a team. Financially backed with funds borrowed from the mayor’s own election campaign and donations from major area corporations, these candidates easily won, and this new majority assumed control of the school board in April of 2004 (Rogers & Pole, 2010). This board hired New York City–based corporate turnaround firm Alvarez & Marsal for a 1-year term at a cost of US$5 million, despite that the firm and its SLPS CEO, William Roberti, had no experience in education (Lehrer, 2004; Saltman, 2007).

The continued lack of stability in the district was integral to the imposition of unpopular policies that mixed public resources with privatization of services. However, there continued to be resistance. For many reasons, including the closing of some schools, the selling of district property, and a sense that the reforms based on cost-cutting philosophies were not working for students or the community, the next 2 years of school board elections resulted in the defeat of mayor-backed candidates. The mayor criticized the decisions of the voters and vowed to “seek alternatives to the St. Louis Public Schools” (Slay, 2006b). He promoted charter schools and a different form of governance for the city schools.

Related to the mayor’s campaign for more authority over the SLPS, in late July 2006, the State of Missouri Department of Education Commissioner appointed the SAC ² or “the Freeman-Danforth Committee” and asked them to gather information about the district and to specifically “consider possible state law concerning the state’s involvement with the school district” (Special Advisory Committee on St. Louis Public Schools, 2006a). On October 19, 2006, the SAC held a parent assembly meeting and reported that “overwhelmingly, the audience opposed State takeover” (Special Advisory Committee on St. Louis Public Schools, 2006b, p. 2). In contrast to that statement, a month later, the mayor reported that “majorities of every group of major stakeholders—parents, teachers, taxpayers, administrators” believe that the “last hope for the tens of thousands students [sic] enrolled in the City’s public school district is a change of governance” (Slay, 2006c). Oppositional statements from cooperating entities made it difficult for people to know what to believe.

The final report of the SAC was released on December 4, 2006 and concluded, “We believe that the State should not ‘takeover’ the district, but that the State can, if it acts wisely, help the community stabilize the SLPS so that it can move forward to improve its ability to educate all students . . .” (Special Advisory Committee on St. Louis Public Schools, 2006c). It was clear in the report that the SAC was not in favor of a state takeover. Nevertheless, the mayor continued to advocate for a state takeover.

In January 2007, the state of Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) invited citizens to speak about the “crisis” and the proposed solutions at a public hearing. Approximately 1,500 people appeared at this hearing and the majority of speakers opposed state intervention. Only two citizens stood to support state intervention. Despite the opposition, in February of 2007, the state voted to remove accreditation from the district, which led to another vote which installed a 3-member politically appointed board (special administrative board) in place of the elected SLPS school board. ³ The stated reasons were lack of accreditation, financial difficulties, and lack of stability. Unaccounted for in the state statute was how school governance would proceed after the 3-year state intervention.

After 3 years of governance by the appointed board, in November of 2009, the commissioner of education announced she was reconvening the SAC that would evaluate the status of the district and offer her board a report within 1 year. The elected school board responded with a series of interventions, the focus of this article, designed to influence the decision.

A note about being a public consultative discourse analyst

Although I had immersed myself in the history and politics of education in St. Louis in previous research (Rogers, Mosley, Kramer, & LSJTRG, 2009; Rogers & O’Brien, 2010; Rogers & Pole, 2010), running a campaign and serving on the elected school board was a different kind of education altogether. I felt compelled to serve on the elected school board—even though the state had taken over in 2007, 2 years before I was elected—because I believe that publicly governed education is vital to a healthy democracy. I also thought my expertise as a university faculty member in education might be of service to parents, teachers, and community members, the very people whose voices were silenced throughout the takeover. I was particularly compelled by Scollon’s (2010) point that “there is also an urgent need for discourse analysts to bring these complexities of the democratic processes of public discourse to public attention” (p. 123). I realized that the elected board was critically analyzing public discourses in an attempt to influence the public policy-making process, that is, engaging in the process of PCDA. As a discourse analyst, I joined in these efforts and also documented the process of attempting to influence public policy.

Data sources

The following publicly available data sources informed the PCDA process: agendas, handouts and minutes of meetings (e.g., SAC, SAB, elected school board), media reports, transcripts of public hearings, reports, and policy documents. The PCDA and subsequent interventions into the process became a set of documents itself (resolutions, press releases, and reports). These documents, too, became part of the data set. All data sources were part of the public record. As a member of the elected board interested both in the process of public consultative discourse analysis to impact policy making and the outcome of the process itself, I carefully documented and archived records of the events that transpired during this time period and subjected them to further analysis following the evaluation period.

Analysis

PCDA is a reiterative process of critically analyzing discourses, reporting on findings, incorporating feedback into the deliberations, and conducting further analyses. Procedurally, the analyses and subsequent interventions focused on a series of episodes during the evaluation of the district’s governance. I documented when and how our board analyzed texts and intervened in the process. In this article, I report on three such episodes: the framing of the committee, the SAC’s so-called “public” meetings, and the elected school board’s transition report. The analyses of the unfolding discourses included a close analysis of the textual devices that contribute to power and consent (Fairclough, 1995; Huckin, 2002; van Dijk, 1998). For instance, board members analyzed media reports, press releases, and agendas and either individually or together as a group made note of textual features such as presuppositions, omissions, metaphors, textual incoherence, framing, foregrounding and backgrounding, and intertextuality. Throughout was the recognition of the historical body which locates practices within a social, political, and economic context.

However, the board did not simply analyze these texts and associated discourses. As a public body, the analysis and responses became part of the public deliberation. Three of these interventions hinged on the following discursive moves: framing, foregrounding forgotten contexts, and creating a counternarrative. This article showcases several of these interventions—public testimonies, resolutions, and a transition report. The board’s analyses often did not include a formal linguistic analysis but, rather, sensitivity to the way in which discourse and power operate. In my report of three such instances, I have taken the liberty of expanding on the linguistic analysis in places to show how—indeed—the public consultative discourse analysis carried out by elected board members can be supported by a closer linguistic analysis.

Framing the Charge of the Committee: Changing the Law

Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro announced today that she is reconvening a Special Advisory Committee on the St. Louis Public Schools to make recommendations regarding the future direction of the school district. . . . Nicastro asked the committee to try to complete its work within one year and to recommend any changes in legislation that might be needed to implement its recommendations.

Elected board President Peter Downs points out that the state has all the authority it needs under existing state statute to reinstall the elected board. The fact that state leaders have instead decided to reconvene a panel suggests the return to elected leadership may not be so automatic.

The Commissioner’s charge to the SAC represented one key moment in the nexus of discourses, practices, and participants. This statement authorized the work of the SAC to evaluate and offer recommendations for future governance of the district. This task was echoed in a handout prepared by the SAC and distributed at their first meeting held on December 9, 2010 titled “Statement by SLPS Committee.” The charge as noted in their statement was

In response to this announcement, the president of the elected school board, Peter Downs, pointed out the hidden assumptions and logical flaws in the charge of the commission.

He pointed out that the language of the charge insinuated a new form of governance, other than a return to the existing elected school board. This is expressed with a certainty that naturalized existing, appointed governance structures. The commissioner could rely on either statute 162.1100 or 162.083 to transition the district from the 3-year SAB to an elected school board. ⁴ Their charge was written in a manner that insinuated predetermined recommendations (“to recommend changes in current law”). This statement was not written in a conditional format such as “If our recommendations necessitate changes in state law, then they will also be suggested.” In this statement, the new information “changes in current law” appeared in the first position in the sentence as if it was given rather than new information.

The “statement by the SLPS committee”—also included in the handout provided during the SAC’s first meeting—included the following information:

We understand our responsibility to be an important part of the whole. Our goal is to come up with a plan that we believe will most likely result in a permanent governing body of able people who are dedicated to the welfare of students and accountable for the success of SLPS and with a sensible and realistic means for ending up there, taking into account the present circumstances and with appreciation for the advantages of stability and consistency.

The repetitive noun phrases “stability” and “consistency” in the last line underscored the committee’s inclination to prefer appointed bodies over elected ones. It also foreshadowed a decision to continue with an appointed board instead of an elected one. The adjectival phrases used throughout are problematic as they emphasize that this future governing body would be composed of “able people who are dedicated to the welfare of the students,” who are “accountable” are “sensible and realistic” and appreciate the “advantages of stability and consistency,” assumingly unlike the governing body that is ready and available to govern—the school board elected by the people. Throughout all of this, the importance of elected school boards governing schools was minimized. Reports of the elected school board were virtually absent in the mainstream media, a silencing that would be difficult for the elected board to overcome. Minimized also is the fact that only large urban districts—those with big money contracts and a high minority population—are being subject to takeovers. Appointed boards were recast as “accountable” and “stable” when, in fact, they are only accountable to the people who appoint them, not the people of the city.

Frames guide people as they make sense of the world (Kumashiro, 2008; Lakoff, 2004). The frames used in the opening of the evaluation process encourage some interpretations and discourage others. We expressed our critique of this framing to the press and then in a letter of recommendations to the committee. In testimony before the committee, I reported on this analysis and offered an alternate framing:

The wording of the “statement of the SLPS committee” implies the committee is looking to transition SLPS to a form of governance other than the elected school board . . . To ensure that returning to local governance and an elected school board is one of the governance options for the district, the language of the committee statement should read as follows:

“[has given us a further charge]. . . . to review governance structures and to recommend changes—if any are needed—in current law necessary to support our recommendations.” I would like to propose that this change be made in the official statement of the committee. Is the committee willing to consider this change in wording?

I delivered my comments to the committee orally and in writing but was given only a cursory response. The charge of the committee was never revised. The elected school board recognized that one frame—that new law was needed—was the dominant foundational frame for the year of evaluation and governance that would follow. Our goal throughout the evaluation process was to critique this frame and present another powerful frame—that is, that the default governance structure in state law was the elected school board; a board composed of seven professionals who were ready and willing to serve the school district.

Foregrounding Forgotten Contexts: The Public

All testimony to the committee shall be made in an open, public forum advertised, at the minimum, in accordance with the public notice requirements of Missouri’s Sunshine Law.

Excerpt from Elected School Board Resolution in Support of Public Hearings, February 16, 2010

Danforth said . . . one thing he did not want to do, though, is agree to a request by members of the elected board to meet with them in sessions open to the public. Instead, he said, the committee wants to meet with the board members private, one or two at a time.

Singer, 2010

What was at stake in this year of evaluation—as can be seen in the above excerpts—was nothing short of a redefinition of the concept of the public. It is important to point out that a private committee composed of political and corporate elites was charged with evaluating the governance of a public school system. In what follows, I point to what Blommaert (2005) refers to as the “forgotten context” (p. 56) of the public, demonstrating how the concept of the public was defined throughout this evaluation process. I point out how the SAC’s evaluation included meetings that were more theatrical than instances where people could share genuine deliberations. This and other facets of the evaluation mark it as political spectacle—that is, the organization of appearances that are deceptive, superficial, and distracting (Edelman, 1988; Miller-Kahn & Smith, 2001). These spectacles erode the foundation of democracy as they disallow genuine participation in decision making. In this next section, I also demonstrate how the elected school board’s ongoing interventions through PCDA helped to recognize if not reopen the importance of the public during this evaluation.

“Public” Meetings: Example 1

The SAC, the committee charged with making recommendations for governance following the 3-year intervention, held four public meetings, punctuated throughout the year in roughly 4-month intervals (December, March, July, and October). The records of their meetings were skeletal and posted in a way that made it very difficult for the public to attend and participate.

Table 1 displays information related to the meetings. A closer examination of the agenda, time, and location of the meetings as well as the reporting of public comments in their minutes is revealing of the committee’s understanding of “public.” Looking across the agendas of the meetings, the agenda of the first meeting did not include “public comments” but the next three did. Related, although 6 to 8 members of the public spoke during the first meeting—including testimony that challenged the charge of the commission itself, as reported above—the minutes simply reflect “the committee took public comments from members of the audience.” It does not include how many, who or what the contents of the comments were. This pattern is reflected in the minutes of the rest of the meetings as well. For instance, the minutes of the second meeting (April 13, 2010) reported that 10 audience members delivered comments, but the minutes do not include that many of the comments delivered were critical of the SAC and the appointed board. A newspaper reporter did shine light on this, reporting “. . . comments from several members of the audience made clear that many people want to return to at least one way business was done in the past—going back to giving the elected board power to run the schools” (Singer, 2010). Also important to note is that the public comments were placed at the end of the agenda rather than at the beginning. This structure implies that the public can comment on the committee’s proceedings but they are not going to inform their deliberations.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Chart of Special Advisory Committee’s Meetings

	Agenda	Length of the meeting	Time	Location of meeting	Public comments	Minutes
Meeting 1: December 9, 2009	I. Welcome II. Introductions III. Proposed statement by the committee IV. Information desired by the committee V.Discussion	58 min	2:00 p.m.	Harris Stowe University, Library	6-8 members of the public spoke	“The committee took public comments from members of the audience.”
Meeting 2: April 13, 2010	I. Introductions II. Presentation by Dr. Adams on the SLPS III. Discussion IV. Public comments	2 hr and 10 min	2:00 p.m.	Harris Stowe University, Library	10 members of the public spoke	“10 members of the audience delivered comments.”
Meeting 3: July 26, 2010	I. Introduction II. Presentation & Explanation of Data collected on SLPS (DESE) III. Presentation & Explanation of Data (SLPS) IV. Discussion V. Public comments	1 hr and 25 min	7:00 p.m.	SLPS administrative building	No comments were given
Meeting 4: October 8, 2010	I. Opening remarks II. Committee to review draft report III. Vote on draft report	1 hr and 46 min	2:00 p.m.	Harris Stowe University, Library	6-8 members of the public spoke	“Several public questions were made. The committee answered all questions raised by the public regarding the approved and final recommendations to DESE.”

The meetings were held at 2:00 p.m.—a time that was difficult for most working people to attend. The use of time in this way prohibited participation and, at the same time, allowed the committee to report that they held open, public meetings. Related, the notice of meetings were posted on the DESE’s website and notices of three of the four meetings were circulated via email networks. However, if you were not on an email network, you would not have known about these proceedings. It was difficult for the public to even find information about the meetings on DESE’s website. Regardless of the browsing path, the information was buried at least three pages deep in the website. ⁵ It is fair to say that the majority of the public was uninformed about the deliberations of the SAC.

Meanwhile, the St. Louis Post Dispatch’s Editorial Board (2009), a newspaper sympathetic with the state takeover and the special administrative board, noted, “the committee’s meetings will be open—with plenty of notice to the public, and opportunities for all interested parties to be heard.” However, the content and process of the meetings reflected more of a performance than a meeting held where ideas, positions, and decisions are deliberated (Edelman, 1988; Granger, 2008; Smith, Miller-Kahn, Heinecke, & Jarvis, 2003). Dale Singer (2009), a reporter with the Beacon, confirmed this hunch in his reporting of the proceedings, “They adopted without discussion a general statement about the importance of the city schools and how they should be run, as well as the crucial relationship between the future of the schools and the future of the City itself.”

Their definition of “public” meetings broke the spirit of the Sunshine Law, the state’s open meetings and records law. ⁶ This law sets out the specific instances when a meeting, record, or vote may be closed, while stressing these exceptions are to be strictly interpreted to promote the public policy of openness. “Public meetings . . . are to be held at reasonably convenient times and must be accessible to the public” (p. 5). Unfortunately, there are few ways to enforce this law. Although the SAC posted the agenda and the minutes of the meetings, they did so in minimal compliance with the state law. Ironically, a committee charged with evaluating a public school system had no accountability to the public. Members of the elected school board were present and spoke at all of the SAC meetings.

The SAC’s Methodology: Example 2

One of the major goals of public consultative discourse analysis is to influence the ongoing trajectory of practices. The elected school board used PCDA to shine light on the lack of transparency in the methodology of the SAC’s evaluation. In the first SAC meeting, there was discussion of what information the committee desired to carry out their evaluation. The minutes from the meeting report this information in the following manner:

Information Desired by Committee

The committee brainstormed ideas regarding the types of information it would like to gather to begin its work. Suggestions included data on student performance and improvement, comparisons of school governance models, updated statistics from the committee’s 2006 report, and interviews with key individuals involved in the St. Louis Public Schools. (SAC, SLPS, 2009)

During the meeting, members of the committee briefly discussed how the public would be asked to give feedback in the process. A member of the SAC stated, “Even if we do not listen to them [the public], they need to feel as if they are part of this process” (Field notes, December 2009). Another person said, “Many people have opinions about this process [educational governance] but we need facts and information” (Field notes, December 2009). Thus, people’s experiences were rejected as noncredible evidence in this process. One of the parts of the process which garnered the biggest criticism—and that the elected school board shared with the public—was the nontransparent nature of their methodology, particularly their process of relying on individual and private interviews as a primary source of evidence. The minutes reported that they would conduct “interviews with key individuals involved in the SLPS.” Members of the elected school board asked the following questions: Who are key individuals? What is the content of the interviews? Will these interviews be public record?

I brought these points up in my testimony before the committee, a point picked up by several media outlets (St. Louis Watch and Beacon). I stated the following:

The elected school board would like to make a methodological recommendation. To ensure accountability as well as transparency, people should be interviewed in a group of 2-3 people. The interviews should be recorded and available for public review. (Testimony to the Committee, December 9, 2009)

In February of 2010, members of the elected school board received letters from the SAC requesting a time for an individual interview. They were very clear that their interviews would be conducted in private. Thus, began a series of letters written between the SAC and the elected school board, where the terms of the meeting were debated. The SAC wanted to meet with individuals from our school board in closed, private meetings. However, we insisted that as a publicly elected board, our business should be conducted in public. They capitulated and noted in one letter to us, “If you feel more comfortable bringing a guest, you are welcome to do that.” However, our main point was that it was not the number of people that was our concern but, rather, that the public school deliberations should be conducted in public.

At our open, public meeting, the elected school board passed a resolution titled “Resolution of the Democratically-Elected Board of Education of the City of St. Louis In Support of Public Hearings on the Future of St. Louis Public Schools” that called for transparency in affairs dealing with the public school system (see appendix). This resolution was our second public intervention based on our PCDA. It was sent to the SAC as well as to a broad coalition of community members.

The media did pick up on our criticism of the closed-door nature of the process and asked the chair of the SAC about meeting with the elected school board in open. His response was reported in a newspaper story:

Danforth said he did not have a schedule in mind for the next meeting. One thing he did not want to do, though, is agree to a request by members of the elected board to meet with them in sessions open to the public. Instead, he said, the committee wants to meet with the board members private, one or two at a time. “We’re not going to let any other group run this,” he said. “It’s our charge. It’s our meeting.” (Singer, 2010, emphasis added)

Finally, in May of 2010, three members of the elected school board met with two representatives of the SAC for 1 hr. We presented evidence about how the district had fared better under an elected school board and why elected school boards are an important part of the community. Two members of the press observed the proceedings. The SAC took the easiest route to avoid criticism: meet with the elected school board, say that they had consulted all stakeholders in the process, and then simply ignore our recommendations. With the exception of a note in the SAC’s final report saying they had consulted with the elected school board, our feedback went unheard. Despite this silencing, we continued to inform our constituents about the lack of transparency in their process and educate them about conditions in the school district. ⁷

Throughout this evaluation process, the SAC’s notion of public was defined in two intersecting manners. First, a small group of political and corporate elites was in charge of deciding the governance structure for a public school system. The public was minimally informed of the proceedings of their committee but was not—in any real way—asked to inform the committee. The public was given just enough information to justify the Sunshine Law but not enough to engage in the process. It was only the elected school board—through our use of PCDA—that made visible the idea that decisions made about public schools should be made in public.

A Counternarrative: The Elected School Board’s Transition Report

Counternarratives are narratives that are intentionally orchestrated and organized in opposition to the dominant ideologies and worldviews (Bamberg & Andrews, 2004; Hilliard, Steele, & Perry, 2004; Solórzano & Yosso, 2009). Solórzano and Yosso (2009) make the case that counternarratives serve several important functions. First, counternarratives question dominant knowledge and provide context to understand and transform established belief systems. Second, they can build community among those at the margins of society by putting a face to social issues and helping people realize they are not alone. Third, they can teach that new stories, over time, can create new realities. In other words, counternarratives function as a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging dominant storylines. In terms of school governance, the dominant discourses during this time period were as follows:

Over the course of 8 months and eight public meetings, we deliberated, debated, and revised what we referred to as our “transition report.” The goal in writing the report was to disrupt the dominant discourses and create a counternarrative about school governance. The report advocates for a return to the elected school board. The first section focuses on the rationale and procedures for a transition to the elected school board. Here, we address the importance of elected school boards in the work of American democracy and education. Likewise, we discuss the detriments of appointed school boards. In this section, we also lay out the 30-day transition plan from the special administrative board to the elected school board. The second section of the report includes a discussion of the conditions necessary for attaining and maintaining accreditation. This section deliberately reviews some of the macro-level conditions that are necessary for an urban school district to survive (e.g., funding, elections, assessment cycles). The third section is an appendix that includes biodata of the school board members as well as a strategic plan for the district that was culminated from a series of focus groups with hundreds of members of the community. Through this report, we created a different narrative—a narrative that positioned the elected school board as a viable option for school governance.

The transition plan that we set forth in the report followed from our interpretation of existing state law discussed above. It suggested that no changes in law were necessary to transition the district to an elected school board. Our wording in the report is as follows:

For a period of 30 days beginning 30 days prior to July 1, 2011 or whatever date the State Board of Education suggests to DESE (whichever is sooner), will be the period in which all district operations are reviewed, updated and prepared by the Missouri School Board Association in collaboration with the elected school board for the return of elected governance to the St. Louis Board of Education.

The transition report deliberately positioned the issue of school governance within a historical, political, and social context, breaking away from what Scollon (2010) refers to as the “trap of summarization” (p. 65). The transition report drew on our collective analysis of policies and the larger political, historical, social, and economic frameworks in which the school district was positioned. The SAC’s report, in juxtaposition, was sanitized of all such context.

The process of preparing the transition report stood in stark opposition to the SAC’s report preparation. A group of democratically elected people wrote the board’s report. It was deliberated, written, revised, presented, and finalized in public. The SAC’s report was prepared in private. The board’s methodology, by way of contrast, was transparent. Drafts of the elected school board’s report were widely circulated through video, executive summary, full report, and press releases. The elected board actively solicited feedback, criticism, and comments. Notices of the meetings were “pushed” to the public. The SAC did not give the public an opportunity to respond to their report. Save for four meetings that were poorly advertised, the SAC’s procedures were all conducted behind closed doors.

The writing and presentation of the transition report caused the elected board to cross boundaries with data, focus, and presentation style, an important tenet of PCDA. Board members presented the report to those making the decisions (e.g., the commissioner of education) to those without much knowledge of the situation at all (e.g., teachers and parents). The process of collectively writing the transition report is a form of PCDA whereas the elected school board called on the tools of discourse analysis—framing, historicizing, and disrupting textual silences—to create a counternarrative to the report that would be offered by the SAC. Although many supported our plan, it did not succeed, in part, because of a lack of organized political constituency among the stakeholders most involved in urban education—people who could have applied pressure on the commissioner of education to return governance to the elected school board (Warren, 2011).