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On March 22 the Missouri State Board of Education voted to remove the Saint Louis Public Schools’ provisional accreditation. The decision hands control of the district to a transitional panel consisting of three members appointed separately by Gov. Matt Blunt, Saint Louis Mayor Francis Slay, and the president of the Board of Aldermen. The takeover will be effective at least through 2013; the elected school board will remain in place, but it will no longer have any control over the district’s operations.

The state takeover follows years of volatile leadership and deplorable academic performance. The Saint Louis Public Schools have gone through six superintendents since 2003. A series of disputes and resignations by school board members has marked district politics, drawing attention towards personalities and away from education reform. On top of all this, the district is in debt for nearly $25 million.

Some high school students in the Saint Louis Public Schools vocally opposed the takeover and the district’s loss of accreditation that triggered it. The students demanded guarantees that their college and scholarship applications would not be jeopardized. They held a four-day sit-in protest at Mayor Slay’s office the week before the state board’s vote and presented ten demands, some of which involved issues Slay said were in the state’s jurisdiction and out of his control. When questioned about possible repercussions for college-bound students, Slay said that the district’s loss of accreditation should not prejudice students’ college applications, and he promised to write a letter to universities asking them to consider Saint Louis students for admission without regard to the district’s accreditation status. A spokesman for the University of Missouri told reporters that the takeover should not adversely affect students’ applications.

Some students continued to protest the following week at the board of education meeting, and one student was arrested for being involved in a physical altercation. The students’ protests took place against the backdrop of district officials’ opposition to the takeover, leading some to suspect the students were being manipulated by adults with political agendas. Superintendent Diana Bourisaw, who sat with the students during the board of education meeting, said she was disappointed by the board’s vote and claimed that the district had been improving before the state takeover.

Students needn’t fear the takeover if the state institutes effective reforms. For example, merit-based pay for teachers would allow the district to reward its best teachers and attract talented candidates. Opening additional charter schools in St. Louis would give students more educational options and introduce greater competition into the market for education. However, no top-down reforms or limited choice proposals will be able to tailor each student’s education to meet his needs. Ultimately the most effective reform will be universal parental choice -tuition tax credits, vouchers, or similar measures that would allow students to attend either public or private schools.

Sarah Brodsky is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute.