Talking Cents: Public Discourse, State Oversight, and Democratic Education in East St. Louis

Abstract

Since Jonathan Kozol's 1991 publication of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools, East St. Louis, Illinois, District 189 has endured unswerving criticism and study. While Kozol's work made publicly known the horrible conditions of schools in the district, it did not bring immediate relief. In 1994, the state appointed a financial oversight panel to review the work of the local school board and to begin work on the district's budgetary problems. For the next ten years, this panel controlled all fiscal decisions for the schools in East St. Louis. District 189 moved from having a $5 million deficit and a total operating budget of $72 million to having $20 million in reserve funding and a $92 million operating budget. Using newspaper articles, state oversight panel reports, and budgetary data, we explore the tenuous, and at times untenable, public relationship between the local school board and the financial oversight committee. We are visitors, waiting. We wait for the children to come forth, for their performances to astound us, as they must. We know what they do not know, that the standing ovation is guaranteed, that the audience will applaud their achievement. We are educators bound by a silent expectation that we must, at least appear to, love children. It is this code, this unspoken rule that guides our interpretations, opens our eyes, admonishes our critique, and moves us to cheer. Here, in this multi-million dollar facility, we watch these children perform for a crowd that looks back with white eyes. What does it mean for these honey/chocolate/almond skinned young people to dance before us—an us that gazes with false promise? Do our cheers sound hollow and contrived or meaningful land sincere? In those brief moments, as they dance, they are present and we are engaged, connected in an unspoken political struggle which makes this dance much more than a dance. We wonder if anyone notices that they are dancing for their lives.