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The draft proposal would give the mayor incredibly expansive powers, including the power to appoint the school superintendent who would serve at the pleasure of the mayor and the to appoint half of the members of budget committee. The draft also transfers most of the remaining power from the elected school board to mayor's appointed superintendent. The proposal is profoundly undemocratic.
(Try a search for 'superintendent' within the draft legislation and in nearly every instance, the super takes power away from the school board.)
Would it work? Is there any reason to think the mayor of Milwaukee knows anything about running a big city school system? Doesn't the mayor already have plenty to do without adding a 82,000 student school system to his plate?
Is an unresponsive school board the reason the Milwaukee students do so poorly and have a horrible black/white achievement gap? Or is a more likely cause the large number of unemployed and the huge disparity of black/white income? The fact that Milwaukee has the 7th highest poverty rate in the US? One-fourth of the people who live in Milwaukee are below the official poverty line. That's $21,000 for a family of four.
Maybe Doyle, Obama, and Barrett should take a crack at fixing that problem.
I don't pretend to understand the Milwaukee politics - supporters include State Sen. Lena Taylor, along with fellow Senators Jeff Plale and Tim Carpenter, and state Reps. Pedro Colón and Jason Fields (all Democrats who represent the Milwaukee area), but the Milwaukee NAACP opposes it as as does the teachers' union. A group has formed to fight the changes: Coalition To Stop the MPS Takeover.
And all this is coming right when Tom Barrett is expected to finally get off the fence and run for governor.
The whole idea smells of politics and another simplistic idea to fix schools.
Doyle announces bill to let mayor take over MPS
Doyle says he has votes for MPS overhaul - JSOnlineWhy the Milwaukee Mayor should not take over MPS ACLU of Wisconsin
Is 'Mayoral Control' The Answer For Urban Schools? from the National Journal, a bunch of education experts:National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Is 'Mayoral ...A mayor's school takeover plot Socialist Worker Online - Nov 9, 2009. See if you can get past the byline and read this cogently written story.
Doug -
ReplyDeleteAdvocates for mayoral control contend
that these systems are too large and unwieldy to be effectively managed by boards
whose composition changes, whose existence blurs lines of authority, and whose
members are not truly accountable to anyone. Billionaire foundation head Eli
Broad told a 2009 Manhattan gathering, “We don’t know anything about how to
teach or reading curriculum or any of that. But what we do know about is management
and governance.” And that’s why, he told the audience, “I’m a big believer
in mayoral control."
I strongly agree with you on this one and the current admin is going to dangle large grants to Milwaukee and Wisconsin to get them to do it with little evidence the current dynamic will change.