Leadership changes among reasons for optimism at MPS

September 16 2010 by Jake Frodsham in School Section |No Comments

Kristyna Wentz-Graff

Solomon Vang, an 11th-grade student at the Hmong American Peace Academy, speaks at the grand opening of its new facility on Friday.

Kristyna Wentz-Graff Shiann Her, 4, listens carefully to her teacher in her preschool class at the expanded Hmong school. Kristyna Wentz-Graff Shiann Her, 4, listens carefully to her teacher in her preschool class at the expanded Hmong school. Close

The song was about how education offered hope and a way forward, particularly for people who had come through hard times and did not have a heritage of success in formal education.

Sounds very good to me, and that goes for both the message and the performance of Phouthavanh Sayaovong, an 11th-grader at Hmong American Peace Academy.

The message was a perfect fit for ceremonies Friday marking the fast-rising school’s move into the former Morse Middle School at 4601 N. 84th St.

But it was also a good fit for the start of a school year beginning with an almost-surprising and (I hope) promising sense of optimism.

All the problems remain deep, disturbing and, overall, pretty much the same. But I can point to news at enough specific schools and to enough specific developments to make me begin to wonder if some traction is being gained against what has seemed intractable. I’ll name a half-dozen things, and it’s not the full list:

• Start with the Hmong school, popularly known as HAPA. Leaders of Milwaukee’s growing immigrant community of Hmong, a people with roots in the highlands of Southeast Asia, started the school six years ago. The school grew to more than 400 students by last year, using inadequate space in two buildings on the south side. Now it has moved into far better space in the former Morse, enrollment has jumped to 717, and there is a very appealing energy to the whole school. Plus test scores were strong last year – more than 80% of eighth-graders proficient in reading and math.

• Furthermore, HAPA, which is chartered by the Milwaukee School Board, is succeeding in putting to good use one of the numerous empty buildings owned by Milwaukee Public Schools, one of MPS’ major business problems. (Morse is now in the former Marshall High School building, 4141 N. 64th St., and is expanding to include a high school, another development with potential). Could this be a sign of a thaw in the School Board’s resistance to renting empty schools to quality schools that are not part of the traditional MPS system?

• The new Milwaukee College Prep: Lindsay Heights Campus is up and running. Previously, a charter school with very poor results operated in the building at N.15th and W. Center streets. In a sequence of events that required, among other things, courage and a huge amount of work, city officials forced that school out of business and, in about a month, the high-performing Milwaukee College Prep put together pretty much a whole new school with many of the same students. College Prep continues to run its main campus at 2449 N. 36th St. If the Lindsay Heights building can become a home of educational success, it would offer the city not only a positive development but a message about what can be accomplished.

• The new leadership team in MPS is off to a good start – a much better start than I admit I thought was likely when Gregory Thornton was named superintendent last February amid controversy over whether to put MPS under mayoral control. Thornton is spreading optimism and energy wherever he goes, without sugar-coating the issues he faces. And he has made what appear to be (so far) some good personnel moves – fresh and determined people heading up the academic office, some of the administrative functions, and the office now overseeing (and, one hopes, bringing change to) most of the low-performing high schools in the city. Sure, it’s a honeymoon period. But maybe the good energy will have both staying power and some ripple effects.

• The new literacy plan has been launched reasonably smoothly across MPS. Replacing 17 different programs used until last year, it gives a unified approach to dealing with the reading crisis in MPS. The new curriculum and textbooks offer a lot of potential. I am skeptical about how much change books and plans can bring. Will they be matched by teaching that brings more success? By involvement at home and in the community? But why not aim and hope for good outcomes? This city, with some of the worst reading scores in the United States, badly needs an all-out mobilization to improve reading.

• I’ve spoken recently with quite a few business, civic and philanthropic leaders. It’s intangible, but I believe there is a fresh surge of interest in education, a willingness on some people’s part to engage more actively with MPS, and a wider agreement that the priority needs to be on quality and good outcomes. Divisions over the private school voucher program and other partisan issues could flare up quickly. The governor’s race and legislative races this fall, a coming state budget and School Board elections in the spring could bring new divisiveness. But for the moment, I sense a greater willingness across the board to join in working for better results for kids.

I could write three times as much as this on the problems – the increasingly ominous financial situation for all schools, whether MPS, charter or voucher; the impact of the layoffs in MPS of a couple of hundred teachers this year; the billions in unfunded MPS obligations to retirees; the effects of poverty and bad parenting on the educational prospects for thousands of children, to name a few things.

But I could also write more about potential bright spots and other schools where there are developments that could bring good.

Give me a few promising developments, the optimism that comes with the start of a new school year, and an auditorium full of hundreds of enthusiastic kids and adults listening to a girl sing (in Hmong) about the value of education, and I’m willing to feel cautiously cheerful.

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