Four weeks ago, I did a column arguing the mayor should take over Milwaukee Public Schools. I didn’t get much from readers disputing my reasoning. Rather, I was told by some insiders that the issue was moot because Tom Barrett doesn’t want to take over the schools.
Wrong. He’s interested, and that’s what last week’s report on the finances of MPS was really all about. Coverage by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went into great depth on the minutia of money that could be saved (which was less impressive than it sounds) while underplaying the real game plan: to lay the groundwork for a governance change.
Barrett is a consensus builder who never moves quickly. He has methodically traveled to Chicago and Washington, D.C., to learn about how a mayoral takeover worked there. He met with President Barack Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, who supports this kind of governance change. “It’s no secret Barrett has met with these people,” says his chief of staff, Pat Curley. “You have to look at whether the current model (for MPS) works.”
There’s pressure on Barrett from the business community to do something about MPS to ensure that graduates have the skills needed to function in the workplace. Last week’s report by McKinsey & Co. was paid for by the Bader, Bradley, Argosy, Northwestern Mutual Life and Greater Milwaukee foundations, which range from liberal to conservative to centrist in their views, but all have businesspeople on their boards. The first paragraph of the report notes that the economic future of Milwaukee depends on the ability of the schools “to prepare well-educated, highly trained and skilled graduates.”
Argosy leader Chris Abele and Bader Foundation head Dan Bader are key supporters of Gov. Jim Doyle who’ve helped push the governor to get involved. Doyle joined in after Barrett announced the need for a study of MPS, and it became a jointly overseen study.
The report’s money-saving suggestions were not that dramatic. The $100 million figure was trumpeted by the media, but the report estimated the possible savings at $58-$103 million annually. The bottom figure represents just less than 5 percent of the annual MPS budget, and up to $43 million in savings would come from a benefits redesign that the teachers union has steadfastly opposed in bargaining talks.
Still, any savings would be welcome, and the report made some reasonable suggestions. More importantly, the report verified what other analysts have previously suggested: MPS will soon face a massive financial crisis, a $200 million budget gap by 2012-2013 that will continue to grow in the years to come. This crisis dramatizes the need for radical change, for some form of exterior governance.
Under current law, the state superintendent of public instruction has the power to demand that a local school system take corrective actions where needed. Barrett and Doyle will work with the current superintendent, Elizabeth Burmaster, and establish an advisory council to oversee MPS. (Her successor, Tony Evers, who takes over in June, is said to be on board with the effort.)
The governor, I’m told, would like Barrett to take over the schools, but Barrett wants to know under what conditions. Barrett told Doyle, “I’d like to have the house, but what about fixing the foundation?” as one City Hall insider puts it.
The foundation is rotten. As the McKinsey Report concluded, the costs of the pay-as-you-go retirement health care system are going to mushroom in the years to come and could bankrupt MPS. The “funding flaw” that punishes Milwaukee taxpayers because of the school choice program is a killer. A teachers union that protects bad teachers and opposes merit pay and other changes makes reform difficult.
Doyle has already included a fix of the funding flaw in his budget, but will the legislature support it? Would he go further and throw in any funding of the long-term health care costs? Or would he and the legislature support some kind of bill to relax impediments to merit pay and other changes at MPS? That would mean taking on labor – and potentially, the all-powerful state teachers union – for a governor who is already gearing up to run for re-election in 2010.
But it might also mean attracting some federal funding. “Arne Duncan and the Obama administration are very interested in Milwaukee,” says Curley. The administration wants to improve and reform urban education, and Milwaukee could make a good showcase. “It’s a large urban administration that needs improvement,” Curley notes.
In short, Barrett is seeking a better hand to play before he considers the gamble of taking over MPS. But the amount of work he’s put into this effort suggests he is quite committed to transforming the school system.
Will Legislators Support a Governance Change?
Last week, Barrett and Common Council President Willie Hines met with a group of Milwaukee’s state legislators, including state Sen. Spencer Coggs, state Reps. Jason Fields, Annette Polly Williams, Tamara Grigsby and Pedro Colon, and an aide to state Sen. Lena Taylor. All are Democrats and minorities, and they were there to talk – and grumble – about the city trying to grab some control of MPS.
While most of the attention has been on the mayor, Hines has quietly pushed for the idea of some kind of governance change, and stood his ground even at the Public Policy Forum meeting where everyone else suggested the change would make no difference. Hines has proposed a plan whereby the mayor would appoint half of the members of the school board with the requirement of Common Council approval.
Williams, I’m told, called this a white power grab. Others in the group of legislators were wary of the city’s effort. Hines reportedly suggested they use their power to get appointed to the new advisory council that will oversee MPS.
I’d argue that Hines’ plan doesn’t go far enough. The mayor needs complete power to even begin to make needed changes at MPS. But if minority legislators won’t even support the black council president’s proposal to go at least halfway, that’s not a good sign.
What about the white members of the Milwaukee delegation – will they support a governance change? Will other Democrats statewide? Democrats run both the Assembly and Senate, and have always relied on support from WEAC, the state teachers union, which as noted, is unlikely to support anything that undercuts union power.
When Mayor Richard Daley assumed control of the Chicago schools, the Illinois legislature was run by Republicans, which actually made it easier to pull off the transition. (Some GOP legislators may have wanted to saddle a key Democrat with the schools, figuring it could hurt Daley.)
It will ultimately take some courage on the part of Doyle and Democratic legislators to support a governance change. But without some radical reform, it’s hard to see how MPS will do anything but decline, and very quickly.
The Buzz:
-Recall my critique of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance study that found MPS spent too much on education, based on a comparison of mostly southern school districts (where spending on government services is always lower). Sure enough, the McKinsey Report found MPS spends about the same as other Midwestern school districts, and about the same as other urban school districts in Wisconsin.
-Sure, Milwaukee has problems, but it could be worse – much worse. In Governing Magazine, Alan Ehrenhalt notes the problems of Philadelphia: It has suffered more than 400 murders annually, a peak of 60,000 vacant properties, and 289,000 abandoned automobiles.
-Enter the words “Janet Zweig and Milwaukee” and you now come up with 8,100 items on Google. Should the latest attempt to bring public art (in this case by Zweig) to Milwaukee once again fail, it’s not likely to help the city’s national reputation.
-In this magazine’s July issue, critic Tom Bamberger wrote an essay criticizing the Milwaukee Art Museum for hanging Stephen Atonakos’ neon sculpture, Double Sequence 2002, right next to Ad Reinhardt’s all black Abstract Painting. “It’s a mugging,” wrote Bamberger, arguing that the bright light obliterates all the nuances of the Reinhardt work. The museum has now moved the Atonakos work to a different place.
-And the Sports Nut compares Brewers manager Ken Macha with predecessor (boo, hiss!) Ned Yost.
