Is It Time for Corporate Chartered Schools in the City of St. Louis?

St. Louis should take great notice of two innovative and advantageous programs taking place in the school districts of the cities of New York and Philadelphia. Both set new standards for public schools in funding, dedicated support, quality of education, and potential for creating advanced talent pools within impoverished neighborhoods.

The drivers of these innovations: private enterprise. Two of America’s largest corporations have made recent investments that can be described as “future human talent development from the urban public sector”. That is, they have started their own inner city public schools.

In Philadelphia, Microsoft has founded what it calls the School of the Future. First conceived of in 2003 and opened in 2006, the school was built to house 750 students in West Philadelphia, a neighborhood comparable demographically to much of North St. Louis, and with the goal of creating a model, repeatable school for “21st Century learning communities around the world.” Elements of this school’s mission include: