New School Rules
"Milwaukee's mayor would have the power to ...appoint the superintendent (of schools)...and set its annual tax levy under a legislative proposal Gov. Jim Doyle detailed Tuesday (Oct. 27)......it would also move authority over budget...curriculum, facility decisions and collective bargaining from the School Board to the superintendent."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 28, 2009
Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) are clearly in trouble. Only about half of all ninth-grade students ever graduate from high school. Massive fights break out at several high schools. Standard test scores are low.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Governor Doyle and State Superintendent Tony Evers have concluded that transferring power from the elected Board of School Directors to the mayor would bring improvement in this situation. But, why?
The teachers at MPS have the same credentials as those teaching at suburban schools, the facilities are comparable, and the method of governance is the same (an elected board hires the superintendent and staff.) If so, then why are the suburban schools doing so much better?
The answer, which no one wants to face, is that the real difference between city and suburban schools is the demographics of the student body. Suburban students are overwhelmingly white and come from functional two-parent homes where education is valued. Most MPS students are black, another large group is Hispanic, and most come from poor homes. To make matters even worse, large numbers of MPS students transfer from one school to another several times in a single school year, often from or to other states.
There is no political pay-off for elected officials to confront these facts; in fact, to mention them out-loud would probably cost votes. The problems of dysfunctional families cannot be readily addressed by changes in law or administrative practices. The state could merge all school districts in Milwaukee County into a single district, which would lead to integration of the schools (economically as well as racially), but this idea would be anathema to suburbanites.
It is hard to see how the power-shift proposed by the Governor would do any good at all. There is no reason to believe that the mayor would pick a better superintendent than the School Board. Giving the superintendent more power, as proposed, would have little or no effect on teaching or student achievement. I conclude that advocating some change, even irrelevant change, is simply a way to show the public that the officials backing the change are concerned enough about the problems to do something about them.
If Tom Barrett really wants to have some say in school governance, he should junk his plan to run for Governor of Wisconsin, and instead run for the Milwaukee School Board!
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 28, 2009
Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) are clearly in trouble. Only about half of all ninth-grade students ever graduate from high school. Massive fights break out at several high schools. Standard test scores are low.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Governor Doyle and State Superintendent Tony Evers have concluded that transferring power from the elected Board of School Directors to the mayor would bring improvement in this situation. But, why?
The teachers at MPS have the same credentials as those teaching at suburban schools, the facilities are comparable, and the method of governance is the same (an elected board hires the superintendent and staff.) If so, then why are the suburban schools doing so much better?
The answer, which no one wants to face, is that the real difference between city and suburban schools is the demographics of the student body. Suburban students are overwhelmingly white and come from functional two-parent homes where education is valued. Most MPS students are black, another large group is Hispanic, and most come from poor homes. To make matters even worse, large numbers of MPS students transfer from one school to another several times in a single school year, often from or to other states.
There is no political pay-off for elected officials to confront these facts; in fact, to mention them out-loud would probably cost votes. The problems of dysfunctional families cannot be readily addressed by changes in law or administrative practices. The state could merge all school districts in Milwaukee County into a single district, which would lead to integration of the schools (economically as well as racially), but this idea would be anathema to suburbanites.
It is hard to see how the power-shift proposed by the Governor would do any good at all. There is no reason to believe that the mayor would pick a better superintendent than the School Board. Giving the superintendent more power, as proposed, would have little or no effect on teaching or student achievement. I conclude that advocating some change, even irrelevant change, is simply a way to show the public that the officials backing the change are concerned enough about the problems to do something about them.
If Tom Barrett really wants to have some say in school governance, he should junk his plan to run for Governor of Wisconsin, and instead run for the Milwaukee School Board!
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 5:30 AM
1 Comments:
Exactly!!!!!!!!! The problem is not the administration and not the teachers and not the school facilities, it is the students. By students I mean not that thet are not intelligent but that they do not value education and they disrupt the classroom ruining it for everyone. They do not value an education because of their lack of a strong family, their famiy is their peers.
The reason for all of this is the welfare system which has sytemically destroyed the Black family, but making it economically more beneficial to have children without fathers. Black families in the 1950's were very strong and healthy even though poor. Today they may have more money and more opportunity but they voluntarily throw it away. To too many Black youth education and school is for whitie and the result is a large segment of male Black youth who are unemployable and a large segment of Black females who are baby factories.
My answer is really very very simple. The government must provide the proper incentives for the Black youth to get an education. Just as government with welfare gave them the incentive to have children with no father, one must give the correct incentives to correct the situation.
So the answer is to make any subsidy of any sort from the government including welfare, health insurance, etc, dependent upon the indivudual having a high school diploma (or for those services they get before they graduate, they must have a passing grade in school) from a reputable and sanctioned private or public school. This also means that if the children are not getting a passing grade then the parents do not get government assistnce with anything, except tutors.
High schools are free and open to the public and there should be no obstacle to anyone getting a diploma if they do the work. But in order to be part of our modern society one must also do one's part to contribute, and when the obligation helps the indiviual himnself, there should be no reasoned objection to this stipulation from any quarter of society.
While this will not solve all problems, it will incentivize the parents and students to educate themselves and this can only help them as well as the whole country.
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