Back to Business as Usual?

Dr. Keith Posley, an honorable man who served the district he loved as best as he knew how, resigned last night during a closed session of the Milwaukee School Board.

This was after a raucous and lengthy meeting, which I attended, in which understandable frustration led to palpable anger and to that which anger always brings in its wake: a certain blindness and lack of focus.

Lost in that anger was the fact that the Board moved to hear the public commentary on the financial mismanagement that led to Dr. Posley’s “voluntary” resignation together with the public commentary on the business-as-usual 2024/2025 MPS budget.

Lost in that anger was the fact that this meant there was next to zero discussion of the details of that budget by the public, despite the fact that the Board advertised this as an opportunity for the public to have their voices heard on this important matter.

Lost in that anger was the critical fact that the early April passage of the $252 million MPS referendum in no way obligates the Board to raise the levy $140 million this year; it merely allows them to do so. It is entirely within their purview not to raise the levy and thus, impose an additional burden on the taxpayers they, ostensibly, serve.

(Of course, not raising the levy would bring with it the need for cuts, cuts that many – including myself – might regard as grievous. But more on that at another time.)

Lost in that anger – or maybe not quite! – was that Dr. Posley’s resignation puts the proverbial Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

The problems that led to his resignation are deep and systemic. A lack of oversight by the elected school board is a starting point, but it is only that.

The electorate’s disengagement from and understandable ignorance of the byzantine workings of the MPS bureaucracy leads to elections in which only a tiny but vocal minority elect representatives on that board for the frustrated masses. Their self-interest, I fear, does not always coincide with that of the MPS children and their parents/caregivers.

The board members themselves are poorly compensated for what might well be the most thankless job in local governance. They, too, are good people who are trying to do the right thing. But as this latest fiasco makes clear: they are in over their heads.

A change in governance should not be the first reaction to the resulting crisis. But it cannot be taken off the table either by sober-minded individuals looking for real and lasting reform.

A takeover orchestrated by legislators who know next to nothing about the needs of the city and our children is not the solution either. If only there were a local leader who knew his city and its needs, and whose own stated aims coincided with those of a healthy and well-functioning school district that didn’t lurch from crisis to crisis. Maybe he could play a useful role in pushing forward much-needed and long-delayed reform?

Wait. I have heard of someone like that.

The Mayor of Milwaukee has stated a laudable, if lofty, goal: to reach one million residents in the City. (By a date yet to be specified, conveniently. You see, goals are easier to reach if one can pick up and move them.)

But there is no way on God’s green earth that this goal can be achieved without addressing the two reasons that people look to the burbs rather than to our fair city when choosing where to (continue to) live:

CRIME and SCHOOLS

(Or, better yet, perceptions relating to crime and schools.)

Given, then, that a well-functioning school system is needed for the Mayor to have a chance of reaching his population goal, perhaps he would be interested in taking on the formidable task of spearheading an effort to reform and restore MPS. He clearly has a mandate from the electorate, having just been re-elected two months ago by a margin that would make most politicians swoon.

I take it that his current silence on this issue is considered, but temporary. I certainly hope so. And I don’t pretend to be able to dictate to him such a massive and controversial undertaking as taking the lead on calling for major but thoughtful reform of the Milwaukee Public School System.

But I would encourage him to do on this issue what an overwhelming portion of the people elected him to do: lead.

Now is not the time for business as usual.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.