Milwaukee: "Main Street of School Reform"

Alan J. Borsuk:

North Ave. is a microcosm of the wealth of things being done to help educate low-income black students and is ground zero in Milwaukee (which itself has been called ground zero in America) for school reforms of many kinds - all of them paid for with public money.

"This whole plethora of schools has inspired this community and given this community hope," Johnson says. "All of the schools along the avenue are sending a very strong message to the community that education is the key, and there are very strong options."

But if North Ave. illustrates how parents in Milwaukee have a wider array of choices in publicly funded education than parents elsewhere in America, it does not yet provide convincing answers of what will come from the innovations.

Map of the North Avenue Area.

The most interesting quote of the article:

(Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William) Andrekopoulos says: "We do things differently because we have to compete. We have a consciousness of all the options in the community."

At the Young Leaders Academy, Ronn Johnson says, "It's very clear to the school operators that you have to offer a high quality option or your customers will leave."

He calls the burst of new schools "a wake-up call to everyone that the power has shifted. It's no longer in the district. . . . Parents really have the power now."

Posted by James Zellmer at December 11, 2005 7:17 AM
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