Milwaukee public education under attack: 13 schools slated for closure

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In a further assault on public education, the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) district in Wisconsin is considering closing 13 school buildings as part of its long-term facilities master plan. The 13 buildings are spread over three miles of land in the city’s poorest areas, with six buildings located in one of the city’s poorest postcodes.

Milwaukee teachers will march in 2022 to demand a return to state funding cut by Gov. Scott Walker (Photo: MTEA)

While avoiding any public comment on the school closure plan, the operation is largely controlled by Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson and the Democratic-controlled Common Council. At a news conference in June, Johnson warned of “deep problems” in the state’s largest school district, saying they “require solutions, and they require quick solutions.”

The mayor said he has no interest in taking over the school district and is confident that the current superintendent and board of education officials can handle the financial crisis.

Democrats, who control the governor’s office and one of the state Legislature’s two chambers, also cut state aid to Milwaukee schools by $81 million in 2024-25. In addition, the Biden-Harris administration allowed federal school funding to expire due to COVID. Wisconsin received $2.4 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding.

The Milwaukee School District used three rounds of ESSER funding—totaling $786.42 million—to hire staff, purchase technology and textbooks, and improve air quality in classrooms. After the funding ran out, the district laid off about 300 school employees.

The MPS announcement is part of a nationwide offensive against public education. Most recently, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) said it would close 17 to 21 elementary schools next year, resulting in hundreds of teacher and staff layoffs. In Chicago, more than 100 schools are on the chopping block. In an email sent by Chicago Teachers Union leaders to all union members on Sept. 13, they said, “More than 100 schools are being analyzed for possible cuts, closures or consolidations.”

Leaders of the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and their state and local affiliates, which support the Democratic Party, have been complicit in the school closures. No strikes, strikes or protests have been called, and the history of school closures—especially in Chicago, where the Democratic government implemented 50 school closures after the CTU sold out the 2012 teachers’ strike—offers a sobering lesson for educators. everywhere. The fight against school closures must be taken up by teachers, who create rank-and-file committees to carry on the fight independently of the union bureaucracy.

The district hired Perkins Eastman, an architecture, urban design and strategic planning firm based in New York, to develop a plan for school closures and mergers.

The district held a general meeting last week, chaired by school officials and representatives from Perkins Eastman. The event was open, parents and teachers were present. The firm’s findings and recommendations were presented in 56 slides that featured the MPS and Perkins Eastman logos.

The firm used a triage tree strategy to apply one of seven recommendations to each building. The “closing or merging” recommendation applied to buildings with utilization rates of less than 50 percent, with steady or declining enrollment, and that were within one mile of another building. Conceivably, redirecting students to a nearby school with sufficient capacity could allow the building to close and realize any associated cost savings.

One parent who attended the town hall disputed the plan, saying, “You’re saying, ‘Consolidate the school and give that one school more investment,’ rather than investing in every school and community.”

It is important to note that students in the school system are not geographically assigned to a specific school. Parents are allowed to send their children to any school in the entire district.

MPS is divided into eight “school board districts.” The slide noted that, in fact, if all of District 3’s children attended schools in the district, occupancy would be more than 100 percent. Actual utilization is between 50 and 75 percent as parents in District 3 send their children to schools in other districts.

The reasons why parents choose not to send their children to local schools are primarily twofold. First, as noted in the presentation slides, certain special programs such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, Dual Enrollment, and English as a Second Language do not exist in some school districts.

Typically, schools with the fewest specialized programs are underutilized. Specifically, District 3 schools have the fewest specialized programs overall.

The second reason why parents send their children outside their area is the difference in academic performance between nearby schools and more distant ones. This factor has been largely ignored in reports of proposed closures to date.

These huge differences in vocational programs and academic performance are explained by the relative wealth of the areas in which the schools exist. In addition to the lack of specialized programs, District 3 also exists in poorer areas with traditionally underperforming schools. In contrast, wealthier neighborhoods in central and south Milwaukee experience higher academic achievement and more specialized programs.

When it comes to academic achievement, poor areas of north Milwaukee, including Districts 3 and 4, have traditionally underperformed schools, while wealthier areas of central and south Milwaukee perform better.

Attacks on schools in the 53206 zip code are nothing new. In March, the school system announced it had fired four trauma counselors from schools there. The action comes just weeks after voters approved a referendum to increase funding for Milwaukee Public Schools by $252 million.

Another factor affecting the school system is that Wisconsin has a voucher program that allows parents with income up to predetermined limits to send their children to private schools. Just over half of all public education eligible students at MPS attend. Most students use vouchers to attend private schools, which receive per-pupil fees from the state government.

The end result, ignored in almost all reports to date, is that historical underinvestment in public schools in high-poverty areas is forcing children out of those schools. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby the lower utilization of these schools is in turn used as a tool to further deplete their resources and even destroy them altogether.

Teachers present at the town hall meeting condemned the proposal to close schools.

One teacher said, “You are pulling the rug out from some of our low-income, highly trauma-informed students. Where will (these children) go if their only source of stability disappears? How will this actually help them?”

Another teacher, who is only in her second year working at MPS, said, “At the school I’m at now, we don’t really offer any extracurricular activities,” the teacher said. “Attendance here is very low, and I think that’s a good reason.”

The ruling class’s hostility toward MPS was illustrated by John Schlifske, CEO of financial services firm Northwestern Mutual, in a scathing editorial in the magazine Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in July. This representative of parasitic financial capital criticized MPS and recommended that the limited management and control of elected school board members be eliminated and placed in the hands of the city mayor. Notably, he did not recommend additional government investment in public education or a return of investment from private education back into public schools.

Milwaukee Teacher Education Association (MTEA) President Ingrid Walker-Henry unsurprisingly promoted identity politics rather than addressing the class issues at the heart of the situation, declaring, “As you can see from this list, the closures are overwhelmingly marked in black.” color. communities…” While racial disparities undoubtedly exist, the fundamental issue here is class and the right to a high-quality public education for all.

Absent from Walker-Henry’s remarks or any MTEA statements was any call for teachers, parents or workers in general to organize and fight against the ruling class and its denial of the right to a quality education. The rich hoard the world’s wealth while the government devotes almost unlimited funds to war and genocide. Meanwhile, students face school closures, teacher shortages and collapsing school infrastructure.

Milwaukee teachers have a proud history of fighting to protect public education. Hundreds of city teachers staged walkouts and protests in the state capital in 2011, sparking massive demonstrations across the state against Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who has rolled back collective bargaining rights, slashed workers’ wages and cut state aid to education by 9 percent.

But this and other subsequent events prove that the working class cannot defend the right to a quality public education by appealing to two corporate-controlled political parties and the restrictions imposed by the union bureaucracy. Educators must take care of themselves and create grassroots committees to fight school closures and layoffs.