Over the past several years, academic achievement and excellence in the Webster Groves School District have collapsed. In nearly every measure- standardized testing, college preparedness, state and national rankings - Webster has seen a quick and steep drop in outcomes that will only be accelerated by the debacle of virtual learning in 2020. U.S. News and World Report shows the district high school's ranking is now 38 in the state, down from 16 in 2016. The leadership - administration and board - have been steering this district far from what should be the district's most important job - academic achievement for all students. Why were letter grades removed from elementary school? Why is so little homework being sent home? Why is our elected school board not demanding immediate and measurable improvements from some of the highest paid administrators in the state?
Our entire community wants and needs a strong, successful school district that works for EVERYONE. We are presenting this information to alert citizens to what is happening in the WGSD and to ask you to join us in advocating for excellence to be restored as the focus of our treasured school district.
We Are Webster
We are citizens of Webster and the surrounding area who love and cherish our diverse community and want to see Equality and Excellence restored as the guiding lights in our education system. We expect ALL children and citizens in our district to be treated as equals in every way and for the academic outcomes of all children to be equal to the banner that hangs in the hallway of WGHS - "Through these halls walk the best students in the nation."
Why We Have to Act
Over the past several years, the best parts of the Webster Groves School District - a good academic reputation and a culture of Equality and acceptance that was once a model for the nation -has been degraded and undermined by administrators with a political agenda and a willing and complacent board who represented themselves to be a-political stewards of our shared resource. Equality has been replaced by a corrupt and discriminatory definition of "Equity," and academic outcomes have cratered as academic achievement has been quietly replaced by social issues and misguided and harmful policies that have damaged academics and brought division to our schools. No more.
What We Will Do to Restore Equality and Excellence
It is a hard thing to realize the people to whom you entrust your children are hiding the truth about what they are doing to your children from you.
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Transparency, Honesty, Accountability and the unquestioned right of parents to guide the morals and beliefs of their own children have to be restored to our school district. Without these there is no basis on which to have a shared school district.
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Academic achievement for ALL students will be the measure by which we judge success, and district administration will be held to account - no more 'systemic' excuses for failure. We expect a plan to dramatically improve test scores and proficiency levels within one year to be introduced by our richly rewarded administrative staff.
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Toxic, un-academic, and unproven curriculum and ideas rooted in Critical Race Theory must be removed. This divisive and un-scientific 'theory' and its practice/applications have no place in our shared school district until the harm it does can be shown to be grossly outweighed by any positive measures in academic achievement. We will get WGSD back to teaching the Missouri History standards in a non-political manner so our public schools can return to being a shared treasure free of political ideologies.
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Policies that require compelled political speech, un-equal treatment under the law, and discrimination based on immutable characteristics will be removed from our schools. WGSD will be a place where children are taught to understand each other through shared interaction and are taught how to think, not what to think.
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Equality of access and support, and diversity of thought will be restored as the hallmarks of our schools. Acceptable achievement levels for ALL are demanded and diversity of thought and goals that makes 'equal outcomes' an impossibility, will be embraced and respected.
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Dramatic Drop in State and National Rankings
Since 2016 Webster Groves High School has dropped from 16th to 38th best high school in the state and #3,421 nationally, according to U.S. News and World Report. Compare this to neighboring Kirkwood High School, which is ranked #5 in Missouri and #376 in the nation. Among high schools in the St. Louis metro area, Webster Groves High School ranks #26. Click on the links underneath the table to access the data directly.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/search?state-urlname=missouri&ranked=true
Among high schools in the St. Louis metro area, WGHS ranks #26.
Academic Failure
See Webster Groves School District's rankings from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) by subject, AP classes, and 4-year graduation rate compared to our neighboring districts. These numbers are all pre-pandemic. Webster's rankings are near the bottom of each category, just below Festus.
Declining Elementary School Rankings
Look at the shocking drop in rankings for 4 out of the 6 elementary schools in the district between 2015 and 2019.
Next is the district's scores from the Missouri Department of Education and Secondary Education (DESE) MAP testing. The scores below show what percentage of students are proficient at each subject in the respective grade level. Overall no more than 72% of students are proficient by their grade level! For our black children that number is no more than 25%! And these numbers are pre-pandemic and before the remote learning debacle.
THIS IS NOTHING SHORT OF A CRISIS FOR ALL OUR CHILDREN
Has our elected school board held the superintendent John Simpson accountable for this failure and put him on notice to change direction? Quite the opposite: they enjoy a very cozy relationship, even letting him tell the Board, his bosses, what their goals should be in a board meeting! If you need further evidence, since Simpson started in 2016, the year academics began dropping, the board has raised his salary from $175,000 in 2016 to ... $222,700 in 2020. While performance goes down, salary goes up $45,000.
It is time for the citizens of the Webster Groves School District to say ENOUGH.
Call and email the elected members of the WGSD School Board. Come to board meetings and make your presence and voice known.
And be ready to vote in April 2022 to replace these board members with people who are committed to restoring Excellence to our school system.
It is clear from the above data that the district is not focusing on essential foundational academic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, and hasn't been for a while. What IS the WGSD focusing on instead? Instead of actively seeking ways to improve the academic performance of all of our children, the Administration has pushed political ideology into every class, policy, and curriculum in the District. Keep reading to learn about the district's political focus that has been replacing their sole purpose of existence - academic excellence for ALL.
Southern Poverty Law Center Curriculum and Controversial "Equity" Consultant
In April 2021, the WGSD quietly adopted a new K-8 Social Studies curriculum over many objections per the community survey results, which they subsequently ignored. The basis of this new curriculum came from a controversial and highly politicized source - the Learning for Justice Social Justice Standards from the far left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
In writing the curriculum, the district consulted with LaGarrett King, a Mizzou professor who identifies himself as a "Race Critical Theorist" on his official University of Missouri - Columbia profile page. His published writings demonstrate his adherence to Marxism and skill at weaving it into curricula using the inquiry design model - the same inquiry design model used in WGSD, as seen in the 4/8/21 board meeting clip here.
This video made by parents in the Francis Howell School District shows many of Dr. King's radical opinions and how he suggested that teachers and administrators can and SHOULD hide what they're doing to children.
That our elected school board has failed to hold highly paid administrators accountable for these embarrassing academic results, while at the same time allowing the administration to spend time and resources pushing radical political ideologies into the curriculum, is a total dereliction of their duties as board members. Is the purpose of a publicly funded school district the creation of political activists, or is it the academic success of our students? Why has no board member forced the administration to answer this basic question: How and when is this politicized social studies curriculum going to help raise the District's atrocious math proficiency rates for black children?
There is much more going on in WGSD. Be sure to go to the What's Happening in WGSD tab to learn more about the radical Critical Race Theory (CRT) consultants your tax dollars have paid for, the facts about the K-8 social studies overhaul, and examples of CRT in the district.
