The Final Call

Too High A Price

By @Bgyrl4Life | Last updated: Sep 11, 2014 - 11:01:47 AM

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Protesters hold signs and march in support of the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO.

Three weeks after the senseless murder of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department the tabs for the costs occurred during the aftermath are starting to come in.

According to the St. Louis Business Journal as of Saturday August 30, 2014, “St. Louis County will spend more than $4 million on its response to the crisis in Ferguson that followed the police shooting death of Michael Brown”… and that’s just St. Louis County.

Other municipalities have occurred costs for their participation, their expenses range from overtime to food to emergency vehicles … and those costs still don’t take into consideration expenses from the city of St. Louis, the Missouri State Highway Patrol or the Missouri National Guard.

When it’s all over said and done, the state of Missouri will shell out tens of millions of dollars ... and so much more in intangibles.

Contrast that to some of the economic realities throughout the region, starting with the pinch St. Louis Public Schools and school districts throughout St. Louis County that service Black students have been experiencing due to lack of funding.

The most dire? Normandy, the school district Michael Brown graduated from shortly before he was gunned down. How bad was Michael Brown’s school district? It was the worst in the state.

A study compiled by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education published August 29 by The Post-Dispatch ranked school districts throughout Missouri. Normandy was the lowest rated.

According to the study:

“The latest report cards, compiled by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, score each district on a wide breadth of data based on results from state standardized tests, attendance, graduation rates and whether students leave high school ready for college or careers.

The score is based on a percentage of points earned in five areas and is considered when state officials determine accreditation. No district is likely to face a change in accreditation until next year.

A quick look at some of the 2014 results:

• Nearly all of Missouri’s school districts, or 97 percent, earned scores in the accredited threshold. Three districts — Normandy, Riverview Gardens and St. Louis Public Schools — continued to underperform. While Normandy did the worst, St. Louis and Riverview Gardens posted the highest gains in the region.”

St. Louis Public Schools comprise the largest school district in the state. Normandy and Riverview Gardens are two of the largest in St. Louis County. Collectively they are tasked with educating the majority of Black students in the region.

For the past decade St. Louis County and the state of Missouri have put more time and energy into writing these districts off, privatizing local school systems and diverting money to affluent White schools to bus Black students than fixing the problem.

Each system has seen massive budget cuts, layoffs and school closures, the result of hiring consulting firms and businessmen to turn the district around rather than using those monies to educate students, fund afterschool programs or hire more teachers.

St. Louis Public Schools paid businessman Bill Roberti $5 million to install a corporate structure to turn the district around.

According to the Washington Post story “Corporate Model Proves an Imperfect Fit for School System” dated December 5, 2004:

“It was billed as the next big idea in education, a way forward for struggling school systems everywhere. Plagued by falling enrollment and dismal test scores, the St. Louis school district hired a big-name New York bankruptcy firm to turn things around for a one-time fee of $5 million.

“During his 13 months as superintendent of St. Louis public schools, former Brooks Brothers chief executive William V. Roberti closed 21 schools, lopped $79 million off the school budget, privatized many school services and laid off more than 1,000 employees.” 

That was 10 years ago. Eleven million dollars was cut from the 2012-2013 school budget just last year.

At the same time the state of Missouri and regional school districts were defunding schools, they were militarizing the police while building new jails and courthouses on the backs of poor Black people.

Ferguson was one of many municipalities throughout the United States that received grants from Homeland Security and participated in the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, an initiative by the Department of Defense that arms local police with surplus military equipment, the very same equipment millions of Americans saw on television being used on peaceful demonstrators protesting police brutality.

Another Washington Post article titled “How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty” details the climate in the region and the pressuring issues bubbling beneath the surface (including racial profiling, gross conflicts of interest and racketeering) that exploded when Michael Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson.

The article quotes Jack A. Kirkland, “a longtime racial justice activist and scholar and a professor at Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work, has lived in the St. Louis area since 1964.”

In it he states, “If you were tasked with designing a regional system of government guaranteed to produce racial conflict, anger, and resentment, you’d be hard pressed to do better than St. Louis County.”

Which brings us to where we are today. Three weeks after Michael Brown was shot and killed, the tabs are coming in. Ten million dollars and counting. Ten million dollars they found in the budget. Ten million dollars that could have gone to saving Michael Brown’s school district, instead of paying to assassinate his character, disrespect his family and terrorize a community in grief.

But that’s not the worst part …

The taxpayers, the very people who were terrorized and had their rights violated by those who took an oath to protect and serve them are expected to pick up the tab.

Bgyrl4life is a human rights activist, hip hop aficionado and industry geek from St. Louis. She is the founder of handsupdontshoot.com, Planet Hip Hop, Skip to the Lou New Media Marketing & PR and unsignedhype.org. Friend, fan or follow at www.facebook.com/bgyrl4life, www.twitter.com/bgyrl4life or www.instagram.com/bgyrl4life.