It’s a Mistake For MPS To Expel Carmen Northwest

School classroom. (Pixabay License).

Your decisions are only as good as your options. Look, I have been eyeing lakefront mansions on Zillow for a good, long while, and I bet Christian Yelich would love me as a neighbor. But until that Powerball ticket comes through, cul-de-sac cookouts with millionaires are not in my future. I can still make a good life for myself in a fixer-upper.

The Milwaukee Public Schools Board seems not to understand that its decisions are only as good as its options.

Thursday, MPS is poised to expel one of its higher-performing schools, Carmen Northwest, a combined middle and high school. By letting Carmen Northwest’s contract expire, MPS would lose 500 students, their funding and their test scores.

Why would MPS do this?

First, Carmen NW is a charter school, one that an external nonprofit runs. MPS creates partnership schools like these to pursue unique missions and raise academic quality. For example, MPS and Chris Her-Xiong opened Hmong American Peace Academy in 2004 to reach families who left Laos but were not reaching their potential in America. Today, HAPA has 2,000 students and, adjusted for poverty, is one of the five best public schools in Wisconsin. But some MPS board members detest charter schools like Carmen NW and HAPA. “I do think they were established to destroy public schools,” said Director Kate Vannoy. “I’m not going to be part of that mission,” said Director Chris Fons. “So, I will vote, ‘No,’ on all non-instrumentality schools.” These types of schools make up many of MPS’s highest performers. Should MPS make decisions based on ideology?

Second, MPS and Carmen Schools of Science and Technology have not gotten along. Carmen also operates schools on Milwaukee’s South Side, and two share the same building with two traditional district schools. The dream was each “corps” could leave its silo, copy the best of what the other did, and pull toward the same organizational mission. The result was disputes over space usage, crowded buildings and differing cultures. So, Carmen is taking its southern schools out of MPS, “distancing itself.” Because things got heated, MPS is losing 2 of Wisconsin’s best high schools and gaining very little. This is not the only MPS breakup. This year, Milwaukee College Preparatory Schools, four of Wisconsin’s very best, announced it was leaving MPS as well. As a result, MPS will lose 3,000 Carmen and College Preparatory students, and MPS’s proficiency rates will drop even further. Carmen NW is just caught in the crossfire. Should MPS make decisions based on bad blood?

Third, MPS falsely claims that Carmen NW performs too poorly to be renewed. Even if Carmen NW were among MPS’s lowest-performing charter schools, MPS regularly renews poor-performing schools. Directors Megan O’Halloran, Marva Herndon, Erika Siemsen, Darryl Jackson and Missy Zombor renewed The Alliance School, which averaged a 15 on the ACT, and GreenTree Preparatory Academy, which has single-digit proficiency and embarrassing fights. But the bigger issue is Carmen NW actually is among the district’s higher performers. Carmen NW’s Forward Exam reading scores rank 55th out of 121 MPS schools, for example. But put schools on a level playing field by adjusting for poverty, and Carmen NW stands out even more. Carmen NW ranks 39th of 121 schools on the Forward Exam and 11th of 32 on the ACT. Its performance against its statewide peers is far too low, but the bitter circumstances of Milwaukee schooling mean it is many children’s best available option. Should MPS make decisions based on incorrect perceptions of academic performance?

Without Carmen Northwest, parents would have few good options.

But Milwaukee Public Schools has even fewer. It needs every last student, dollar and proficiency point. An imperfect relationship does not have to end in divorce. Your decisions are only as good as your options.

Quinton Klabon is Senior Research Director at the Institute for Reforming Government, a right-leaning think tank.

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