Milwaukee Public Schools, Wisconsin Legislature on collision course over lowest performing schools

Alan Borsuk:

Commitment. What does that mean? What does it call for?

We're about to get some very interesting and important lessons in "commitment" in terms of schools in Milwaukee -- which is to say I'm quite interested in what will happen at two meetings scheduled for this coming Thursday, in part because of what happened at a meeting last Thursday.

I choose the term "commitment" for specific reasons:

For one, at Thursday night's meeting of a Milwaukee School Board committee, Superintendent Gregory Thornton put forth a plan for dealing with 25 or so of the lowest performing schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools system. One of the few details that was given was that this group of schools now would be known as "commitment schools."

Here's a second reason: It was clear at the meeting that a primary commitment of a full-house audience of about 300 -- as well as of what appeared to be a majority of the School Board -- was to solving MPS' problems within the traditional public school system and fighting those who are pushing for more charter schools that would have leaders and teachers who are not MPS employees.

The commitment to actual improvement seemed to vary among people in the crowd.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 26, 2014 12:32 AM
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