On Alan Borsuk’s Commentary on New MPS Budget

By Larry Miller

When does speculation – what MPS parents might do – become suggestions – what MPS parents ought to do?

In a February 12 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel commentary, Alan Borsuk appeared to be on a slippery slope about the woes facing parents of students at top-performing MPS schools.

First, Borsuk claimed our schools are suffering because the district failed to use the “tools” given them by Gov. Scott Walker. He compares MPS to other school districts across the state, asserting that many of them are in the black because of those “tools” – read, stinging cuts to teachers’ benefits.

The truth is that many districts were saved by use of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Districts across the state will face similar difficulties to MPS when those federal dollars run out at the end of the school year. For example, the Waukesha school district took advantage of $3.6 million from ARRA to cover this year’s shortfalls. But next year they will not have those funds to fall back on.

Lamenting possible cuts for MPS’s top-performing schools, Borsuk says, “I suspect many of the immersion and Montessori school communities, including many teachers, wish they could charter right now.”

As for parents of kids at those schools, Borsuk wonders whether they’re “… aware that the application period to open-enroll into suburban public schools is open right now?”

Unfortunately, such “advice” only adds to an already difficult situation.

Governor Scott Walker has made disastrous cuts in education. Analysts have pointed out that  Milwaukee is among the hardest hit districts in the country. Inevitably, those cuts will hurt all of our schools.

Until every child at MPS can be assured a reasonable class size, decent books, curriculum designed not to teach to the test but responsive to children’s lives and learning styles, we have to say the system is not working.

But for now, we have to do the best we can with limited resources. In my mind, the number one priority is to draw the line at the present class-sizes in our schools.

Adults directly working with students must be a priority. As resources become available, support and reform initiatives can be expanded.

Is This Thursday’s Marquette Law School Forum Intended to Help Pave the Way for the MMAC Takeover Plan of MPS?

The Marquette Law School is sponsoring a conference this Thursday, November 17, seemingly to introduce the MMAC’s new plan to create 2 school districts in the City of Milwaukee (see blog: MMAC Proposes New MPS Takeover Plan.)

The opening session of the conference, with a speaker followed by a panel, is basically a pep rally for the New Orleans “reforms”.  The panel includes Howard Fuller, a key architect of the MMAC plan. There is no speaker with a critical perspective on education in New Orleans.

According to the MMAC, the post-Katrina  New Orleans school “reforms” show the path for improving Milwaukee’s schools. The MMAC’s interpretation is:

·         Flood Milwaukee with “miracle” national charter schools.

·         Create a “low-performing” school district within MPS with an appointed school board.

·         Track students in the “low performing” district into vocational education.

I will be posting information about the New Orleans model and the MMAC plans over the next few days.

To view the day’s activities and to register for the conference go to:

http://law.marquette.edu/marquette-lawyers/fresh-paths-ideas-navigating-wisconsins-new-education-landscape

Alan Borsuk in Denial Once Again

In Alan Borsuk’s Op-ed, on Sunday 5/9, special education is once again left out of the discussion. It is interesting that Alan  Borsuk’s articles about MPS are usually laced with ridicule and sarcasm but when talking about voucher and charter programs his articles are filled with optimism and encouragement.

Borsuk states in the article when talking about three profiled schools, “None of the three screen students to admit only those likely to do better…” If that is the case why are only 3% of voucher students receiving special education services?

(I recently had a discussion with a voucher school principal. After being told that her school has only a “few” special education students, I asked, how is that possible?  She stated that she simply tells parents of special education students that she cannot provide the services that their children need. This principal said that parents then choose another school, most likely an MPS school.)

By the way, Milwaukee College Prep, one of the schools Borsuk talks about, proposed to start a charter school with MPS for 360 students. It will open in 2011.

4 initiatives seek to raise student proficiencies

Alan Borsuk Posted: May 8, 2010

Leaders and backers of the handful of high-energy “no excuses” schools in Milwaukee are launching efforts aimed at tripling the number of children attending such schools in the city.

The goal proclaimed by leaders of four efforts that have sprung up almost simultaneously is to raise the number of students in such demanding schools from about 6,000 now to 20,000 by 2020.

If the efforts succeed, they will dramatically change the education landscape in Milwaukee and, backers hope, make widespread the high achievement levels of the schools that are at the center of the new effort.

But for the effort to succeed, major political, institutional and financial hurdles will need to be jumped. People on both sides of the longstanding, giant chasm between partisans for Milwaukee Public Schools and partisans for charter schools and private voucher schools will need to cooperate and focus on matters of improving the quality of education where they might actually find common ground.

The question all the new efforts are beginning with is: How can the success of schools such as Milwaukee College Preparatory, 2449 N. 36th St.; Bruce-Guadalupe, 1028 S. 9th St., and St. Marcus Lutheran, 2215 N. Palmer St., become more widespread?