Last week all hell broke loose regarding the fate of Milwaukee Public Schools. Mayor Tom Barrett proposed an outside audit of the system. As a candidate for mayor, Barrett floated the idea of a mayoral takeover of the schools, so this looks like a first step toward establishing control – and a clear message the MPS ship is sinking.
Meanwhile, a new group called Milwaukee Quality Education was formed, led by Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce President Tim Sheehy and former MPS Superintendent Howard Fuller. Reforms tried in other cities were supposed to be discussed, with the obvious aim of dramatically changing MPS. “We have urgency coming out of our ears,” Sheehy declared.
Add to this the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s three-part series suggesting MPS wasted most of a $100 million effort to cut back busing, and the takeaway message is that a dysfunctional school system needs rescue.
Meanwhile, the Greater Milwaukee Committee has been engaged in an ongoing effort to improve MPS, creating a plan of “corrective action.” One insider tells me Sister Joel Read, former Alverno College president, was very influential in formulating the plan.
Nothing is more complicated than MPS politics. So what are we to make of all this?
Let’s start with the JS series. It’s good reporting, but as often happens with daily journalism, a bit short on perspective. This effort to cut back busing got wide support and seemed to make a lot of sense. But in some of these neighborhoods where more buildings were created or expanded, there was a big increase in children attending choice schools and bailing out of MPS, which undermined the effort.
The other issue is that most parents refused to choose neighborhood schools. Many want to get their children out of neighborhoods they consider unsafe. If MPS won’t let them do it, under state law their child can get bused to any private school or choice school in the city. MPS could lose even more kids to choice schools with such an approach. It’s an example of how complicated the Milwaukee system is, with its mix of choice, charter, public and private schools.
Will an audit by the mayor help the public school system? It couldn’t hurt. Since MPS is already moving toward doing its own audit, the mayor and the school system should work together on this, both to combine forces and save money. A report backed by the mayor, and completed by outsiders, would give its findings more credibility and elevate the issue of MPS, which faces endless challenges.
Could a school system run by the mayor do better? Perhaps. But let’s wait and see what an audit might find and how he handles it. Barrett does nothing precipitously, or without lots of support, so there’ll be plenty of time to decide the issue of mayoral control.
Meanwhile, the business community is understandably concerned about where its future workers will come from, given the poor performance of many MPS schools. Of the two main business groups, the GMC is now seen as the good guys by liberals, since the committee it created includes MPS insiders and supporters. I don’t know how much impact the GMC strategic plan is having, but it would be hard to find a more knowledgeable advisor than Read. Milwaukee school board members Terry Falk and Bruce Thompson, who disagree on issues like school choice, both agree that the GMC plan has been helpful.
The two board members, however, part company on the new group formed by Sheehy and Fuller. Falk sees the group as unfriendly to MPS. Thompson thinks the group could help unite school choice supporters and those more concerned about issues like a state funding formula that is badly underfunding Milwaukee.
For all the carping about Barrett as a mushmouthed softy, his nice-guy quality might give him the ability to bring all the players together with a plan to improve Milwaukee’s schools. There’s no doubt many smart people care deeply about the issue. But they are badly if not bitterly divided. That makes it very difficult for Milwaukee to move forward educationally.
The Maestro Attack Lou Fortis
Lou Fortis is in trouble now. The Shepherd Express owner has made an enemy of The Maestro.
Fans of the “Seinfeld” series well remember the character played by Mark Metcalf, the music conductor and pompous boyfriend of Elaine who insisted everyone call him “The Maestro.” Metcalf, the jolly journeyman Hollywood actor who lives in Milwaukee, was involved in the creation of the Milwaukee International Film Festival, and last week wrote a scathing three-part story slamming Fortis for how he ran – or didn’t run – the festival.
Metcalf concedes he worked as a festival volunteer and is biased. He also discloses (belatedly) that he applied for the position of the festival’s executive director at one point and wasn’t picked by Fortis. But Metcalf’s account echoes complaints of other observers I’ve interviewed in writing about the festival in recent months. The highlights:
-While overseeing the festival he founded, Fortis “was absent most of the time because, by his own admission, he knew very little about film festivals and less about films,” Metcalf writes. Yet Fortis would call an occasional meeting and “then, in a decidedly autocratic way … would change and micromanage decisions.”
-Fortis did little or no direct fundraising for the festival and instead “relied heavily on Mayor Barrett, who had been a friend for a long time.”
-Fortis “routinely presented false budgets to potential sponsors” and often withheld the budget from the festival’s staff.
-Fortis fired Chris Allen as director of operations, though Allen had overseen a 76 percent increase in attendance and 25 percent increase in revenue.
-Fortis resisted creating a large board of directors, something routinely done by arts groups to maximize connections to possible corporate and foundation donors, and insisted on a board that included only himself and two Shepherd employees.
-Fortis disbanded an “executive” advisory board after its members dared to disagree with him.
-Fortis and Shepherd Express arts and entertainment editor Dave Luhrssen ran the film festival in a manner that “bordered on being an unethical conflict of interest.” Example: Fortis forced the nonprofit festival to buy all ads from the for-profit Shepherd Express.
-It was Metcalf who went to philanthropist Chris Abele, a key funder of the festival, to urge an independent board be brought in to oversee the festival. Meanwhile, as conflict arose between the MIFF staff and Fortis, the Shepherd began to dun the festival with bills for ads that ran in the weekly plus accumulated interest.
-When Abele’s Argosy Foundation and the Herzfeld Foundation began negotiations to separate the festival from the Shepherd, Fortis demanded “something in the neighborhood of $250,000” to cover what he claimed the paper was owed for ads and other contributions he made to the festival.
As I’ve written in the past, Abele and company agreed to pay Fortis $54,000. Metcalf writes that Fortis was ready to sign an agreement, but eventually balked, insisting that Fortis, Luhrssen and another Fortis appointee must be put on the new festival board. At this point, “the people he was negotiating with had heard enough. Finally.”
When asked if he had any response, Fortis sent an e-mail telling me the story “was so far from the truth that we had to have our attorney contact him. I assume that the article will be removed from the website next week or there will be some serious corrections.”
But Onmilwaukee.com Publisher Andy Tarnoff says no attorney has contacted his company and “there is no reason to take the story down.”
Meanwhile, Fortis is still trying to negotiate some kind of settlement. He confirmed that Madison attorney Ed Garvey, the one-time Shepherd board member who originally (back in 1997) installed Fortis as the owner of the Shepherd Express, has now entered the fray. Garvey has written to the Argosy and Herzfeld foundations to demand that negotiations with Fortis continue.
But the two foundations have moved on, pouring $200,000 into the newly formed Milwaukee Film group, which also hired all the staff of the Milwaukee International Film Festival. Milwaukee Film has announced it will present its first event, a showcase of short films by local filmmakers that will run Oct. 23 at the Oriental Theater.
That doesn’t seem to leave much for Fortis. At this point, he may wish he’d hired The Maestro as his executive director.
The Buzz
-The drumbeat from liberals accusing the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce of being too partisan just got a little louder: former UW Chancellor John Wiley roasts the group in an essay in Madison Magazine that’s getting a lot of discussion.
-What led to the decision to clean up the Kinnickinnic River? One factor was a 2006 story in Milwaukee Magazine by Kurt Chandler that dramatized the problems and potential of the river, and is still the most in-depth look at the issue.
And the Sports Nut picks the best of the Olympics.
