Helen Lovejoy is more than a minister's wife. She is an icon, the yellow-faced bulldog behind one of society's most enduringly annoying mantras:
Won't somebody please think of the children?
In Milwaukee, this cry often falls on deaf ears. The Milwaukee Public School system is less an educational structure than it is a punch line on fail blog. Students are performing far below expected levels, resources are few, and ultimately too few people are thinking about the children.
Fortunately, Gov. Doyle decided to step in. Knowing there needed to be a change in MPS, and potentially motivated by a larger desire to make Wisconsin attractive for the Obama administration's Race To The Top grants, Doyle announced a bill that would take significant authority away from the school board and put it in the hands of Milwaukee's mayor. These powers, which include the ability to select the superintendent and set the annual tax levy, should not be taken lightly, and one would hope a busy mayor would find adequate time to thoroughly look at the city's public school system. After all, if you have time to lose a fight at a state fair, you can budget a few days to deal with education.
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