New MPS Superintendent Left Prior Job During Period It Faced Similar Criticism

The Milwaukee Public Schools entrance on June 25, 2024. Margaret Faust/WPR

The Milwaukee Public School Board of Directors has chosen Brenda Cassellius as the new superintendent at a time when the district is facing challenges on several fronts: finances, facilities and student performance.

Cassellius faced those same issues at her previous school district. The reviews of her leadership with Boston Public Schools are mixed.

Cassellius served as superintendent of Boston Public Schools from July 2019 until July 2022.

Shortly after she took over leadership of the Boston district, she was faced with a report similar to the one Milwaukee Public Schools received this week.

The Boston school system was failing.

“The (Boston) district does not have a clear, coherent, district-wide strategy for supporting low-performing schools and has limited capacity to support all schools designated by [the state] as requiring assistance or intervention,” according to the March 2020 report by the state of Massachusetts.

Milwaukee Public Schools is facing similar challenges. An audit of the district’s operations found the most vulnerable students are not being well served.

An independent audit commissioned by Gov. Tony Evers found that MPS is not adequately supporting its schools or ensuring student success.

In Boston, Cassellius, a former longtime Minnesota education commissioner, said overhauling the district’s lowest performing schools was her top priority.

Two years later, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education checked in again.

A second report praised Cassellius’ leadership on several new district-wide initiatives, but said the district had “failed to effectively serve its most vulnerable students, carry out basic operational functions, and address systemic barriers to providing an equitable, quality education.”

During Cassellius’ tenure, a study from the right-leaning Pioneer Institute in Boston called for the school district to be put into state receivership due to “years of rapid decline marked by low overall performance, yawning achievement gaps, instability, bureaucratic inertia and central office ineffectiveness.”

In an interview with WPR, Cassellius said MPS has operational and academic priorities. And the district has to establish trust and confidence in the community.

“Part of that trust is within the finance area and then the operational challenges facing the district,” Cassellius said. “All of those pieces are absolutely critical to being able to move the agenda forward.”

Cassellius said her tenure with Boston Public Schools was marred by the pandemic and racial unrest following George Floyd’s murder.

Despite that, she pointed to several accomplishments during her tenure at Boston Public Schools, including the creation of MassCore, a set of college and career ready graduation standards, and achieving the highest graduation rate on record for the Boston Public Schools.

“I’m just so very proud of what we accomplished in Boston,” she said. “Kids have clean water now in Boston. There wasn’t clean water in Boston, when I came to Boston.”

“They have counselors and social workers and nurses and school libraries and school psychologists in their schools,” she continued. “They have more arts programming and new arts equipment. They have a stronger athletics program. They had highest graduation rates on record.”

The Boston school district is similar to Milwaukee Public Schools. Both are the states’ largest school districts and are majority minority.

“Part of what I wasn’t able to do in Boston, that I will be able to do (in Milwaukee) — pending we don’t have a pandemic — is build a really strong team,” Cassellius said. “I’m not saying I didn’t have capable, wonderful people in Boston who were doing the best that we all could.”

Boston has 46,000 students in 125 schools. MPS has about 67,000 students in 156 schools.

When Cassellius announced her resignation from Boston Public Schools in February 2022, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called it a “mutual decision.”

Cassellius was praised by the Boston Teachers Union and local education advocacy organizations for her contributions including issues around equity and changing admissions requirements for Boston’s elite high schools to make them more equitable.

Cassellius walked away from Boston Public Schools with more than $300,000 as part of her separation agreement with the Boston School Committee, according to public records obtained by Boston Magazine.

The agreement also called for both parties to refer to each other in a “respectful and professional matter.”

In Boston, the city’s mayor appoints members of the school committee who then select the superintendent of schools.

Cassellius said during her tenure in Boston, she had three mayors in three years and three board chairs. When Wu became mayor, she appointed her own team that did not include her, Cassellius said.

In a statement, after her resignation, Wu praised Cassellius.

“I am grateful for the Superintendent’s leadership, especially while navigating the COVID-19 pandemic,” Wu said. “Her vision and relentless focus as a champion for our young people and for equity has helped BPS move forward on needed structural changes within our district.”

After leaving Boston, Cassellius returned home to Minneapolis, where she led an environmental nonprofit for about two years. She also ran her own consulting firm in Minneapolis.

Before her role as superintendent of Boston Public Schools, Cassellius served as Minnesota’s Commissioner of Education for eight years.

She was also the superintendent in East Metro Integration District, associate superintendent for middle and high schools in Minneapolis Public Schools, and academic superintendent for middle schools in Memphis City Schools.

Listen to the WPR report

New Milwaukee schools superintendent left previous post amid criticism of failing system was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.