Friday, February 12, 2010

Which is harder: Fix the Public Schools or Build a New Memorial Drive?

The debate over the city's public schools has gone on for a long time. Everyone wants to see them improve. Many people are working to make them better.

A new Memorial Drive is a dream for some of us. Like fixing the public schools, it's a complex challenge too.

So, which do you think is more doable? Fixing the schools or building a new Memorial Drive? Which do you think is more complicated?

One thing's for certain about St. Louis: there is more than enough to keep everyone busy!

3 comments:

Mark Groth said...

Fixing inantimate objects is always easier than fixing human behavior. Having kids in the SLPS, I can tell you fixing roads and connections between a city and a park are going to be much easier than fixing the school situation. Actually, I'm of the opinion that the schools/teachers need less fixing than the parents who aren't involved in their children's education or reinforcement of their education after school hours. The SLPS administration offices are in many cases rife with nepotism, racism and incompetance and need a complete overhaul, not unlike the depressed section DT. Both need to be fixed, no doubt. But a healthy school overall school distict would bring/retain more citizenry than a new Memorial Blvd.

Rick Bonasch said...

Thanks Mark for your comment.

It's funny. I went to a meeting last night and there was discussion about both topics.

A majority of the evening was spent talking about the problems in the public schools. A common theme we hear is "fix the schools, fix the city". But as you say, it's a very complicated problem.

So when I suggested the idea of a new Memorial Drive, guess what one of the first impressions was, "Oh, that sounds pretty complicated."

I'm with you. I think it's alot less complicated than fixing the public schools. And here's a thought...

What if a new downtown Charter School with views of the Arch was built on land reclaimed for new construction thanks to the removal of the elevated lanes? Or perhaps on the site of the Bottle District?

Anonymous said...

In a city-region where incompetence, nepotism, corruption, divided government and juvenile attitudes ("where did you go to high school"?) rule, failure is unavoidable. Changing a culture is typically harder than changing infrastructure but MOdot is unified, the region is not.