Fortunately, I had a mostly strong and supportive board with the courage to pass those recommendations even when there were hostile reactions from the public. These included closing under-enrolled schools, changing school start times for transportation savings, moving to central kitchens, and negotiating benefit changes.
There is not enough space here to talk about the adult push back to such cost saving changes. While I was superintendent, the auditorium was never packed with people lobbying about student achievement, increasing early childhood education, or improving the graduation rate. That hasn’t changed. It is always about adult issues.
Unfortunately, over the last ten years, there has been tremendous MPS staff turnover and retirements, which has significantly impacted institutional knowledge and expertise – most notably in the financial and human resources departments.
This has added stress to the current governance structure. The district’s latest reporting problems to the Wisconsin Department of Public instruction are a good example. The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program formed in 1989 was supposed to improve MPS performance by creating competition. As a result, MPS developed some very good new school and program options.
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“An emphasis on adult employment”