MPS Takeover: A Big Red Flag

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The talk of the week has been the proposed privatization of Milwaukee Public Schools.  State Senator Alberta Darling and State Representative Dale Kooyenga are pushing for taking away public control of MPS schools and handing them over to Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele so that he could proceed in privatizing them.  Abele is absolutely giddy about the prospect.

But why Abele?

Sources have said that Darling and Kooyenga had originally approached Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to do it.  They probably figured that Barrett would be the best choice because he is the mayor and because he had already proposed taking over the school system himself.  The backlash from parents, voters and teachers was so great that Barrett quickly dropped the idea.

Barrett, remembering the sting of the strong rebuke, wisely passed up on the Republicans' offer to be their stooge.

So then they went to Abele, even though his jurisdiction is Milwaukee County and not the city.  Abele was a better fit for them because he's more like a Republican.  Abele also embraces the pro-poverty agenda of plantation economics.  And heck, Abele even made campaign donations to Kooyenga.  On top of this, Abele is good friends with - and heavily influenced by - Michael Grebe, the head of the Bradley Foundation, which has been pushing for school privatization for decades.

As noted above, when the Republicans came to Abele, being the dimwitted and pompous ass that he is, he gladly took up the offer.

SIDE NOTE:  Abele's apologists are saying that it was either Abele or Walker leading this and Abele felt he was the better choice.  This is, of course, utter bullshit.  Abele is just as incompetent and maleficent as Walker.  Politically, it would have been better to make Walker own this, especially as Walker is spending all his time and our money running for president.

Claire Zautke

But with Abele being the proposed education privatization czar, there is a big red flag and a potential scandal.

That red flag is Claire Zautke.

Zautke is a member of the Milwaukee school board.  Her track record is less than stellar.  She has voted in favor of charter schools.

Besides being a Milwaukee School Director, Zautke is also Abele's Principal Executive Assistant at Milwaukee County.  Per her Linked In profile, she does Abele's scheduling, liaising, organizing, internal communications and employee relations.  She is also in charge of Abele's internship program.

Obviously, she works very closely with Abele.

Think about it for a minute.  A school board member, who is less than friendly to the public schools and has voted for charter schools, working for and closely with the guy that has been tagged to privatize the schools.

What could possibly go wrong?

I'm sure that they have both maintained a strictly professional attitude at work, focusing only on county business.  I'm  sure that there were no communication between them about information of the school system, its budget, its staffing levels or anything like that.  Even though Abele has never displayed that kind of professionalism or ethics before, there is no reason not to believe there is a first time for something like this.

By the way, don't expect the Democrats to do anything about any of this.  They are too afraid that if they criticize Abele for his role in selling out our children and their futures, he might stop writing them the occasional check - not that all of his money has helped them win any races for the past several years.

Abele Boasts About MPS Privatization Scheme

As reported yesterday, Chris Abele - the Mitt Romney of Milwaukee County - was in cahoots with Republican State Senator Alberta Darling and Republican State Representative Dale Kooyenga to bring in a Jim Crow education plan to the Milwaukee Public School System.

Today, via WISN-TV, Abele finally speaks about the debacle and is very proud of it:

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele would oversee the failing schools under the plan.

He released this statement Monday afternoon:

"Providing the best K-12 education system for the community should be a priority for everyone who lives in Milwaukee. For the past 20 years, it has been a priority of mine as I have been actively involved in a variety of education policy efforts in Milwaukee. I have worked with every MPS Superintendent going back to Superintendent Andrekopoulos, I helped the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee, on whose board I still sit, in partnering with over 35 MPS schools, I assisted in crafting the successful Race To The Top grant proposal that MPS was awarded, and I continue to be involved in Schools That Can Milwaukee, an organization that seeks to ensure that 20,000 Milwaukee students attend high-quality urban schools by 2020.

"In all of these efforts, my goal has always been the best quality education for as many kids and their families as possible, delivered in the fairest, most sustainable way possible. While this legislation is not something I sought, when I was recently approached by Rep. Kooyenga and Sen. Darling asking if I would be the appointing authority, I told them that it was hard to have an opinion absent all of the details. But IF the bill passed that way, it’s a responsibility that I would accept and take very seriously.

"Proponents of this legislation should know the following: I like and respect MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver and would want to work very closely with her; I remain very concerned about the funding flaw that the current voucher system continues to create for MPS; and I believe public money should be directed to open admission schools, not selective admission schools.

"If placed in this position, I’m committed to work hard to take this proposal and ensure that its implementation is as successful as it can possibly be. The families in Milwaukee deserve no less."

He likes and respects and wants to work closely with MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver.

Heh.

Boss Abele once said that he wanted to work closely with the Milwaukee County Board. That was before he hamstrung them, took away their authority and consolidated power into his own hands.

Are there any guesses on what he would do if he got control of any of the MPS schools?

Another area that should concern people is Abele's overall track record just running the county.  Even after five years, it is obvious that Abele is way over his head and unable to do the job.  And his failure is costing people their jobs and their lives.

What makes this situation even more disconcerting is the fact that the majority of Democratic Party leadership is silent on Abele's complicity with this attack on public schools - maybe they are too busy putting up inane, ineffective and irrelevant billboards..  Even worse, Marlene Ott, the Chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County, is actually defending Abele's willing assault on our children.

With "progressives" like these, who needs conservatives?

Abele, Republicans Propose A Jim Crow Education Plan For Milwaukee

Just when you thought the Republicans couldn't go any lower or do anything more despicable than what they already have done, they take it as a challenge and outdo themselves.

State Senator Alberta Darling and State Representative Dale Kooyenga have come out with a proposal they quaintly and misleadingly call "Opportunity Schools Partnership Program."  Despite its cheery little name, it is nothing more than a proposal to hasten the privatization of the Milwaukee Public School System.

The gist of the plan is that they declare a number of Milwaukee Public Schools as "failing" and target them for take over by a private school.

But there is a particularly nasty twist to their plan.

These privatized schools would be run by Milwaukee County Executive Emperor Chris "Boss" Abele:

Solution: The Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program (OSPP) will create a new governance>structure in MPS to free students from nonperforming schools.

• OSPP shall be run by a Commissioner for an at will term appointed by the Milwaukee County Executive
• The Commissioner shall operate independently from the MPS Board
• The Commissioner shall receive parallel authority to the Board, but shall be free of all state and local regulations except for safety, health, special education, and non-discrimination laws 

Now, the gentle reader is probably asking themselves why would they choose the Milwaukee County Executive Emperor to run the City of Milwaukee's schools?

Well, Abele believes in plantation economics, just like his Republican friends.  Abele is also good friends with - and heavily influenced by - Michael Grebe, the head of the Bradley Foundation, which has been pushing for privatization of public schools for years and years.  Oh, and Abele has donated money to Kooyenga.

This Jim Crow education plan is flawed on many levels, which have been outlined by the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association.

Chief among the flaws is the misrepresentation that the schools caused Milwaukee's economic and social woes.  The truth is the opposite of their assertion.  The economic and social segregation imposed by Abele and his Republican friends are what is driving the poor test scores.

Abele and friends also ignore the vast evidence that privatized schools are no better - and often much worse - performers than public schools.

But hey, who needs facts when there is profits to be had?

Another problem with their scheme is this line:

All employees at a school incorporated may apply for a position in the new school. However, such an application waives current and future privileges to be represented by any union as all employment within OSPP is at will.

That is in violation of federal labor laws regarding the private sector.

Then again, Abele and his Republicans also have never shown any respect for the law, nor do they have any love lost for the unions.

For a front line view of this battle for Milwaukee's future, I strongly urge the gentle reader to go to Wisconsin Soapbox, who has more on this wrong-minded debacle.

Then, if you're as righteously outraged as I am, please go here and sign up (at the bottom of the page) to show your support for our public schools, for our teachers and for our children.

Education Privatization Group Uses Children As Props At Budget Hearing

On Friday, I and about a thousand other people took the day off to spend it at Alverno College where the state's Joint Finance Committee was holding their second day of public listening session.  When I arrived at about 11 am, the crowd was so big that it led out of the building all the way to the street.

As people trickled out of the building, they would let people in in small groups.  It took about an hour to get in the door and registered to speak. Even with all of these people, it was very calm and orderly.  I don't believe that it had anything to do with the score of police officers that were present. It is just that the citizens continued to be the adults in the room.

This left Alberta Darling with nothing to gripe about except that people would show their pleasure and displeasure by holding up different colored sheets of papers.  And after Darling insulted the citizenry, saying that they were being rude for this, people started admonishing her for her childish complaint.

The topics that people addressed to the committee were pretty much the same as the previous hearing at the first hearing, such as the cuts to the UW system, to public schools, laws that would damage the environment and the privatization of long term care for the elderly and disabled.

Even though it was spring break, there was a considerable presence from UW students that stayed in Wisconsin to address the proposed cuts to their schools. They pointed out that the cuts would make the schools less attractive to students and increase the brain drain that Wisconsin is going through.

Senior citizens, people with disabilities and their caretakers shared the importance of programs like Family Care and IRIS, which are the only things keeping these vulnerable citizens from being forced out of their own homes and into nursing homes.

There were many representatives from several school districts that came prepared with the actual numbers on how damaging the proposed cuts to public schools would be.  They were outnumbered by outraged parents that came to fight for their children's schools.  One of the best comments was a parent who said that they had made their choice, and that their choice was public schools:

"We have made our choice and we choose the public schools," Suarez Flint said. "Public education is not failing. You are failing public education."

Big business was represented too.

Members of the MMAC were there to plug for the hundreds of millions to build a new arena in Milwaukee, claiming that it was a "quality of life" issue.  This was met with derision and comments by the group pushing for actual quality of life issues like a decent education system or the programs that help our most vulnerable citizens.

Another corporate faction that was present were the parties that wanted to privatize so many important programs in the state.  One example would be that there were no less than three major for-profit insurance companies that were salivating over the chance to get a no bid contract for the $3 billion meant to help the disabled and the elderly.

The education corporate vultures were also present and were the ones that pulled a rather tasteless stunt.  They pulled out scores of children from school to push for Walker's agenda of privatizing the public education system:

Image courtesy of Sen. Chris Larson

As State Senator Chris Larson points out on his Facebook page, can you imagine what the reaction would be if the Milwaukee Public Schools pulled kids out of class to pander to the committee for more money?  The right wing squawkers and propagandists would be foaming at the mouth for weeks in their faux outrage.  It would undoubtedly make it to the national level as Faux News, Drudge and Breitbart all clutched their pearls and fell back on their fainting couches at the abuse of tax dollars.

Yeah, but even though the brainwashing education of these children are also being funded by taxpayers, don't hold your breath for any of the right wingers to say even one word about this.  That would require integrity and intellectual honesty, things that they are clearly lacking.

Scott Walker Heightens Attack On Public Education

Shortly after Scott Walker was first elected as governor of Wisconsin, he set about attacking the state's education system to prepare it for privatization. His first act was to cut more than a billion dollars from the education system. The effects of this massive cut were devastating, so much so that even the school district that Walker championed as a "success story" is failing horribly.

This year, Walker and his Republican cohorts in the state legislature have upped their attacks on the public education system. Walker wants to eliminate the requirement that teachers actually know how to teach. Meanwhile, his cohorts in crimes against humanity are trying to mandate that the public schools they deem to be unworthy have to become private schools - all at the taxpayers' expense, of course.

Ah, but there's more. There's always more.

Walker wants to further cut funding to public schools. An act so heinous that the editorial board of the Appleton Post-Crescent had to publicly lambaste him for it:

Walker is neither adding to the revenue limit nor including a per-pupil increase. For the next two years, districts will get the same money they have this year. If their fixed costs — like fuel, electricity or heating — go up, tough. Since a district’s budget is 80 to 90 percent personnel costs, the cuts will come from personnel in some form.

And then, it gets worse.

Walker wants to expand the statewide voucher program for students from low-income families (the limit is about $44,000 for a family of four) by eliminating the 1,000-student cap. The only saving grace is that, unlike the current program, the students getting new vouchers have to be coming from a public school or entering kindergarten. They can’t already be in private schools.

And, instead of providing extra money for vouchers in the budget, it’ll be taken entirely out of the pot of money for public schools. If a district loses five kids, it’ll lose what it would’ve gotten from the state to educate those kids. But, a district can’t reduce fixed costs in the same way. It’ll be another financial hit.

And then, it gets worse.

Walker — who has converted from a Common Core proponent to an opponent — finally has discovered that there’s no mandate for school districts to use the educational standards. But in his budget plan, he wants to get rid of the standardized tests that go along with Common Core — tests that state districts have been preparing for over several years and will use for the first time this year. He said districts can choose their own tests, which would make comparing districts difficult.

And, after failing in the last budget, he’s taking another swing at setting up a board that will approve independent charter schools — schools that could be non-profit or for-profit (red flag!) that operate outside of a school district’s governance.

As they did two years ago with the last budget, enough of Walker’s fellow Republicans in the Legislature may object to the governor financially stiffing public schools and will find some extra money to help them.

“I don’t see how they go two years without any (new) money,” Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon and the Senate Republicans’ leading education expert, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

But the governor’s plan leads to two interesting philosophical questions.

Given how our public education system is so important to everything we do in the state that it’s engrained in our state constitution, shouldn’t we want to conserve it?

And, given how Walker wants to further damage our public education system, where’s the “conservative” in that?

It makes one wonder if even Walker is narcissistic and hypocritical enough to run as the education candidate for the GOP.

Scott Walker Hammers Another Nail Into Education's Coffin

Last week, Wisconsin Republicans came out with the bright idea that if public schools aren't meeting their standards, those schools should be forced to become private voucher schools.

As Scott Walker is trying to get some attention in his presidential bid, he's laying out parts of his platform in the upcoming state budget. One of his agenda items is to allow just about anyone to teach:

Anyone with “real-life experience” and a bachelor’s degree would be able to get a teaching license in any subject as long as they pass a test proving they are knowledgeable, under a budget provision Gov. Scott Walker announced Thursday.

The proposal would expand the non-traditional routes available to become licensed without an education degree. But many details weren’t disclosed Thursday, including whether it would call for any preparation for teaching, which is required in many of the current ways to get a teaching license without attending an education school.

Under Walker’s proposal, people with experience in fields they intend to teach could get licenses as long as they have a bachelor’s degree and demonstrate “that he or she is proficient in the subject or subjects that he or she intends to teach,” according to Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick.

Walker must figure that if we aren't going to have real schools, we don't need to have real teachers. Obviously, if the teachers aren't really teachers, the voucher school doesn't have to pay them as much and the voucher school owner can increase their profit margin.

Cross posted at Crooks and Liars

Milwaukee Voucher High School Closes

Voucher schools around the country are proving to be an epic failure and are leaving students and their parents stranded with little or no warning.

It's no different in Milwaukee:

A private Milwaukee high school run by a voucher-school operator that's come under scrutiny this year has been barred from receiving more taxpayer money, state documents show.

And now Travis Technology High School on Milwaukee's north side has closed, forcing about 200 teenagers, almost all of whom attended on a taxpayer-paid voucher, to find different schools to attend when winter break ends.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on Dec. 22 barred the high school from participating in the Milwaukee voucher program because it failed to obtain a special bond this month that was part of an agreement the school's operators signed with the state in October.

On Monday, a receptionist at Travis Tech confirmed the school was no longer operating.

Travis Tech, 8350 N. Steven Road, had 179 children enrolled as of fall 2014, according to state enrollment figures. The high school is one of two voucher schools run by Ceria M. Travis Academy Inc. The other is Ceria M. Travis Academy, 4744 N. 39th St., a much larger school with 437 students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade, according to state enrollment figures.

The nonprofit running the schools is headed by CEO Dorothy Travis Moore and her daughter, Executive Director Wilnekia Brinson.

Both are paid six-figure compensation packages, according to their organization's federal tax filings. Meanwhile, current and former employees have complained to the state and to the Journal Sentinel of lacking textbooks and other adequate classroom materials and resources to help children learn.

They also complained that Travis Moore has regularly employed teachers without bachelor's degrees — the state requires teachers at voucher schools to have degrees — while employing family members with dubious job titles and responsibilities.

Travis Moore and Brinson did not return calls for comment for this article. In previous interviews, they confirmed a handful of family members were employed but declined to produce a full roster of staff members' names, job titles and salaries.

Yeah, it sucks for those kids and their parents that have to find a new school by Monday but hey, at least the owner of the voucher school and her family got paid well, which surely will help them sleep at night:

Federal nonprofit tax filings list the individual compensation for Travis Moore and Brinson, whose total compensation packages totaled $213,000 and $118,000 respectively, in 2012, according to those federal documents.

Brinson said five family members are employed at the organization, which has 67 employees. Travis Moore confirmed that Brinson's husband, Robert Brinson, works for the organization in a student support and security role.

They declined to disclose other family members' job titles and salaries.

A video from a celebratory dinner for the organization at the Milwaukee Art Museum in 2011 revealed that Travis Moore's son worked for the organization, as well.

Over the years, the Travis family has raked in $35 million even though only 2% of their students can read at grade level and only 3% can do math at grade level.

I can't wait for the rousing success the entire state will see in 2015 when Scott Walker and the Teapublicans make the voucher system a statewide program.

Ohio Charter School Teachers Try To Unionize

I love seeing stories like this:

Several local charter school teachers say they lost their jobs because they were trying to unionize. They also allege that "I Can" charter schools have less than ideal classroom conditions.

This would be the first time a charter school has unionized in Northeast Ohio, and there will be a mail-in vote from July 21 to Aug. 4.

In the meantime, the American Federation of Teachers plans to file an unfair labor practices charge against "I Can" Schools accusing the charter of retaliation against nine teachers.

"I was the first one called in, told 'You did a great job but not asked back,' " says former teacher, Abi Haven.

These former teachers also say classroom sizes are too large, there are not enough books, no recess and there is major teacher turnover.

Former special education teachers also say that the needs of children with special needs are not being met adequately.

We in Wisconsin are not unfamiliar with all the problems associated with privatized schools but it is good to see some of these charter school teachers speaking truth to power.  And the unfair labor practices charge will only help to shine the light on the fact that privatizing education is not for the kids or the teachers.  It is simply to exploit them to line the pockets of the special interests with taxpayer dollars that could be used to...I don't know...maybe actually educate children.