MPS needs an education czar
Several weeks ago, long-time education observer Alan Borsuk, expressed outrage about the dismal educational achievement of black students in Wisconsin. Their recent, average test scores rank among the nation’s worst, if not the worst. Likewise, the disparity in results between white and black students puts Wisconsin at the bottom.
He rhetorically asked, in effect, when will people demand the type of change that would erase this stain.
The answer is apparently not yet. More recently, Borsuk reported that the new interim superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, Keith Posley, introduced a revised MPS budget plan that drew cheers from the teachers’ union. They were celebrating that they had beaten back changes championed by former MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver.
In toting up winner and losers, Borsuk concluded that the biggest winner was the status quo, whereas the biggest loser was coming to grips with difficult decisions.
In fact, the biggest losers were the minority students who are consigned to woefully underperforming schools. For them, nothing has changed.
It may be a bit unfair to say the teachers’ union simply wants to maintain the status quo. They would like to see an increase in salaries and benefits — provided that none of that is contingent on performance. What they oppose is fundamental change, such as merit based pay, and competition of any sort, especially from those pesky charter and voucher schools.
The status quo persists because most MPS school board members do the bidding of the union. They do so for a simple reason: Hardly anyone votes in April school board elections, except for activist teachers, their families and friends — all of whom get prodded by constant reminders from the union.
The only time there is change is when the state Legislature imposes it, by expanding school choice and the like.
What’s heartbreaking is that there are public, charter and voucher schools in Milwaukee and elsewhere that work and can be emulated. They prove that children from impoverished or even dysfunctional backgrounds can be taught to read and do math at grade level and beyond.
To achieve success across the system, however, requires change — change in how school leaders are selected and retained, teachers are evaluated and school bureaucracies operate.
MPS needs an education czar to implement reforms without being secondguessed by a feckless school board. (See New York City where former mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Joel Klein to such a role and to good effect, despite the protestations of union boss Randi Weingarten). He or she should keep and replicate good schools, and be given the authority to shut down ones that are not working.
Logically, Milwaukee’s mayor would appoint such a person. Unfortunately, the current mayor, Tom Barrett, seems disinclined to accept that responsibility, perhaps fearing a backlash from one of his core constituencies.
This is disappointing and a bit perplexing. Wouldn’t he derive more satisfaction from advancing the educational development of his city’s children than from appeasing a hidebound union?
If Barrett begs off, the Legislature ought to designate some other elected official to make the appointment — someone who would be held responsible for his or her choice of education czar.
None of this is easy, but it is achievable. For us as citizens of Milwaukee and the surrounding area to know that and yet do nothing would be an outrage.
Jay Miller lives in Whitefish Bay.