Abele misses key facts as he helps Republicans takeover MPS

Chris Abele is mistaken.

Milwaukee County Executive Abele's recent claim that he is "committed to making sure MPS is not harmed" during the process of the state-ordered takeover of MPS, shows he doesn't understand what's really going on in Milwaukee.  

Abele's recent op ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel followed a forceful statement by several community leaders against the MPS takeover. The No Takeover movement is clearly growing and being felt by the powers that be.

Here are four things Abele apparently doesn't  understand about schools in Milwaukee:

1) The schools that Abele's commissioner will force MPS to charter will be non-instrumentality schools. They will be run by private operators. Therefore the employees will NOT be PUBLIC employees, not be eligible to participate in the state's retirement system. Most will not have the right to just cause in discipline matters. These are NOT public schools -- at least not in terms of the people who work there.

2) The schools are not directly controlled by the democratically elected school board. The school board isn't required to approve such charters. Even more important, however, once these schools are chartered by the commissioner they can essentially do what they want. Past practice bears this out: The leadership of the non-instrumentality Carmen HighSchool has tried to take over Bradley Tech High School despite explicit opposition from the school board and the superintendent. In other words, some of these so-called "public" schools are trying to replicate themselves against the will of the democratically elected school board. These are NOT public schools -- at least not in terms of the democratic decision-making progress.

3) Data show that the 15 MPS non-instrumentality schools, with only one exception, serve significantly fewer students with special needs. Similarly these schools, with only one exception, serve fewer students who are classified as "MRP" -- most restrictive placement. The two charts below have the data from MPS for the 2013-2014 school year..

4) Abele writes in his oped that "Milwaukee County is in a unique position to provide to provide services... such as mental health, transit, and housing [to schools]." That's great. No need to do it through a commissioner or wait until the threat of an MPS Takeover, however. Community advocates and the MTEA have been promoting the notion of community schools for some years. Abele should have his staff call the community schools coordinators at James Madison High School, Bradley Tech HS, Auer Avenue and Hopkins Lloyd Community School and use those schools as a start.

The Milwaukee Public Schools is the only institution in this city that has the capacity, commitment and legal obligation to serve ALL students in Milwaukee. 

Chris Abele needs to understand that his participation in this Republican Takeover effort inherently damages the Milwaukee Public Schools. 

We should keep the pressure on  Able to say NO to the Takeover. If he does move forward, he should appoint a commissioner who is absolutely in support of public schools and then instruct the person to do the absolute minimum: Put a tiny school in an empty building to satisfy the state law for the first year and then create no more non-instrumentality schools in subsequent years but instead put County resources into supporting the students who attend MPS.

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A final note. A huge thanks to the thousands of staff, parents, students and community members who participated in the Walk Ins last Friday. And a thanks to staff, parents and students of Highland Community School (which is a non-instrumentality charter school) for consistently standing with with MPS advocates opposing the MPS takeover.  Finally, a thanks to Jack Norman for the graphics used in this blog.