Shift to mini-districts starting to pay off

Economies of scale. Emphasis on hiring and development of employees. More professional management. Clear goals and consistency in pursuing them.

Sound like operating principles for businesses. And they are. But the businesses we’re talking about are schools.

One of the most significant developments on the Milwaukee school scene in recent years has been the rise of what I call “mini-districts.” My definition of that is a centrally run education operation with schools in at least three locations.

We’ve got at least nine private and charter school operations in Milwaukee (and reaching beyond in a couple of cases) that meet that definition. That’s not counting Milwaukee Public Schools or Catholic schools in the city as a whole.

There are still a lot of stand-alone private and charter schools in the city. Some of them are well-run and deserve applause. But, as is true in the broader world, it has become harder to run a small, independent shop and the momentum is toward big operators.

I wrote about this a couple of years ago, naming eight mini-districts. Since then, one (Universal Academy) has departed. It was the only one that was based outside of Milwaukee. There are two newcomers to the mini-district list, Carmen Schools, which has three locations, on its way to four, and Seton Catholic Schools.

I decided to check what’s up with three of the more interesting mini-districts, each one religious.

LUMIN Schools. The Lutheran Urban Mission Initiative now runs four schools in Milwaukee and one in Wauwatosa, with just over 1,000 students, the vast majority of them using publicly funded vouchers. A sixth LUMIN school, Renaissance in Racine, has more than 300 students.

LUMIN did very well on the state school report cards released a few days ago. Two schools were listed as “meeting expectations,” two as “exceeding” expectations and two as “significantly exceeding” expectations. That was in large part because of strong results on the measures of how much progress students were making.

“There’s a whole lot more work to do,” said Richard F. Laabs, president and CEO of LUMIN.

He and Shaun Luehring, vice president overseeing the education work, described steps LUMIN is taking to strengthen leadership in each school and stabilize and improve the teaching staff and programs.

Where do they see LUMIN in five years? Laabs hopes they will be “nipping at the heels” of the highest performing schools in Milwaukee. And the network will expand in Racine and move into Kenosha, he hopes.

Seton Catholic Schools. As a reporter a dozen years ago, I visited many of the Catholic kindergarten through eighth-grade schools in Milwaukee. None of them was terrible. But most weren’t very energized.

Seton, now in its second year of full operation, is the answer to what Catholic education leaders here knew was a problem. Its goal is to turn many of the Catholic schools into better-run, betterfocused, better-staffed and overall more successful schools. Using Seton staff to make decisions about hiring, educational programs and finances centralized and consistent is a key to the effort.

Last school year, eight schools were involved in Seton. This year, four more were added. There are about 2,900 students in the 12 schools. And the Blessed Savior set of four small Catholic schools on the north side is becoming involved with Seton, with the expectation it will be a full participant next year.

Seton’s leaders know they have a lot of big challenges. Is there progress being made? “We’re seeing our first glimmers. We have confidence in our teaching model,” said Donald Drees, president of Seton.

Only two of the current 12 Seton schools were rated below the “meets expectations” level. Drees said report card data for last year’s eight schools showed student progress was better than in Milwaukee Public Schools or voucher schools overall. But the number of proficient students in the schools remains generally low.

Seton is putting a big priority on hiring and training of principals. And it has set ambitious goals for drawing teachers with strong credentials.

HOPE Christian Schools. With about 2,900 students in six schools in Milwaukee, including one high school, and two schools in Racine, the HOPE network is the largest of the local minidistricts.

To my observation, HOPE is a wellrun organization, I’ve always reacted positively when I’ve visited a HOPE school. All of the schools serve low-income and predominantly minority populations (as is true generally of Seton and LUMIN).

These things said, HOPE has not succeeded in showing the levels of academic success, either in test scores or the report cards that one would like to see. In the new report cards, four of the schools are rated as failing to meet expectations, one as meeting expectations. The others are too new to get grades.

Zach Verriden, executive director of HOPE, says a lot of improvements are underway and the report cards, based on prior years, are “a bit of a lagging indicator.”

“We’re in a really exciting period of growth for us,” Verriden said. The newer schools are doing well in both enrollment and academic success, he said. Changes in how principals and teachers are mentored and trained are among steps he pointed to that he expects will bring better overall results.

Overall, I miss my corner drugstore and have trouble warming up to big chain stores. But the mini-district shift shows evidence of improving schools and outcomes for thousands of low-income students. We could debate all day about the sector wars in Milwaukee. But I have trouble finding what’s wrong with big numbers of kids going to schools that are getting better.