After reading the article in this morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the shortage of teachers…and the inequality of per pupil spending across the metropolitan area…I realized that the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program just underway out of the county executives office doesn’t go far enough.
Instead of taking over a few failing Milwaukee Public Schools and handing them over to charter and voucher school operators…all of the municipal and district public school systems in Milwaukee County should be abolished and combined as one countywide system with every student a free agent who can apply to any school in the county…first come first served.
That might be cool or start a revolt in the suburbs. The law explicitly restricts the takeover to the city of the 1st class – or in non-Madison speak – Milwaukee. Please remember that the primary reason for the Oak Creek law was to prevent Oak Creek from being absorbed into Milwaukee and MPS. No coincident that law was implemented soon after Brown v. Board of Education and at a time when very racist accusations about billboards came out against Frank Zeidler.
The cool kids were proposing this idea a decade ago, Ed …
And I mentioned during my school board campaign and got slammed big time…although not as much as when I suggested we cut interscholastic football…sheesh.