The Other Shoe Falls on MPS
Mayor Tom Barrett. Image courtesy City of Milwaukee
Gov. Doyle and Mayor Barrett have made it official; according to a report in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, they both support giving control of Milwaukee Public Schools to the mayor.
Despite the Mayor’s protestations, it appears that the other shoe has now dropped and it has fallen on the heads of the popularly-elected school board.
I’m not opposed to a change in the governance of MPS but there is no convincing evidence that one form is better than another. What makes a school district succeed is the quality of the people in charge, not how they are chosen.
There are some great success stories within MPS but there is no question that the district has some serious problems. Under the much-maligned No Child Left Behind program, MPS has been identified as a district “in need of improvement” which gives the state broad authority to make sweeping changes.
Former Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster went out of her way to publicly pledge to work with the MPS board and administration on intervention strategies. Burmaster did not run for reelection this year and it remains to be seen where her replacement, Tony Evers, stands on this brewing political showdown.
The bottom line, of course, is what is in the best interests of the children. But supporters of the elected school board are understandably upset that this decision appears to be a done deal despite the establishment of a commission to study it.
A key factor appears to be federal funds that Arne Duncan, President Obama’s secretary of education, is planning to distribute to school districts to spur innovation. The implication is that Duncan supports mayoral control of schools, since he was put in charge of Chicago schools by Mayor Daley. But mayoral control does not guarantee innovation and many people are likely to see this as a referendum on confidence in Tom Barrett.
Regardless of what happens, MPS is in for a whole lot of changes. There are several new members on the school board and new school board president Michael Bonds has already shown himself to be willing to challenge the status quo. But most important of all is the impending appointment of a replacement for MPS superintendent William Andrekopoulos whose term ends next year.
Bonds announced his resignation from the commission in protest, maintaining that the current school board hasn’t been given a chance to correct MPS’s problems.
Whatever happens, I hope it works out well for the children of Milwaukee. The state legislature must act to authorize such a change in MPS governance. But it’s not such a great reflection on the political process when such a weighty decision gets revealed through a meeting with a newspaper’s editorial board.
I simply don’t get that mayoral control will accomplish anything – especially since one of the main complaints has been the schools raising taxes too much, so would he then slash the budget even more? As an MPS parent, I’ve already seen the devastation that cutting and cutting and cutting has wrought in the classrooms over the past decade.
would be an awful lot better if the state legislature would go ahead with a plan to ensure – and FUND – adequate services for all school children in the state, whatever district they’re in.
Something like this:
http://www.excellentschools.org/resources/CostOut.pdf
As Jack Norman’s report from 2002 suggests, these are not new issues facing MPS and MPS isn’t the only school district in the state or nation facing such challenges. While it does largely come down to moulah, PA, it also matters who’s in charge and who decides how the money is spent. It seems clear to me that the immediate future of MPS will largely depend on who beomes the next Superintendent regardless of who makes the appointment.