The charter-school deal that almost happened

By Jason Hancock | Editor-in-Chief

Good morning,

Charter schools are one of those Capitol issues where the politics in public and the politics in private don't always line up cleanly.

This year, that gap helped sink an entire education package — including the legislative vehicle for Gov. Mike Kehoe's A-F school grading plan — as negotiations over where charter schools could open ran into resistance from senators whose own districts were on the table.

The plan? Swap one county out, slot another in, make sure the number of students living in charter-eligible areas still went up. But it didn't hold.

Annelise Hanshaw walks through how close lawmakers actually got, where the talks broke down and why Kehoe's grading system is likely coming anyway — just not through the bill lawmakers spent months negotiating.

by Annelise Hanshaw

A deal on school accountability was within reach before lawmakers’ fight over charter schools exposed a familiar gap between support for expansion in concept and support for it closer to home.

by Jason Hancock

The decision places two of the year’s most consequential measures before a smaller, historically more Republican-leaning electorate than the November general election.

by Steph Quinn

Montgomery County is preparing a 70% personal property tax abatement for a $15 billion Google project, but the cost-benefit math won't be public until June 8 — and residents in New Florence say that's part of the problem.

by Rebecca Rivas

A federal ruling, a new state law signed the same day and a union win down the road have given post-harvest workers at a St. Louis cultivation facility the opening they've been waiting for — and they don't think it stops with them.

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