Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele has until mid-November to appoint a commissioner for the Opportunity Schools Partnership Program (OSPP) and begin taking over public schools to privatize them, but new data released by state Superintendent Tony Evers indicate that the program might not be ready for prime time.
The OSPP was created via a catch-all education amendment slipped into the state budget by its two authors, state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and state Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield). Its only hearing was in the state’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, which Darling co-chairs and Kooyenga vice chairs. The public wasn’t allowed to testify on it and it didn’t go through the usual committee process in the Legislature.
The proposal, based on takeover districts around the country that target low-income, minority school districts that are starved of resources, allows the Milwaukee County executive to appoint a commissioner, take over up to three “failing” MPS schools in its first year—and up to five schools in subsequent years—fire their staff and offer them up to private charter operators. The OSPP also allows Abele to take control of surplus MPS properties. The OSPP diverts public per-pupil MPS dollars to OSPP schools, but designates no funding to pay the commissioner or operate the program. The OSPP only takes over MPS schools, not taxpayer-funded private voucher or charter schools with similarly low test scores.
Abele, who lacks a college degree, signed on to the plan while Darling and Kooyenga were drafting it, but has held no public hearings on his goals for OSPP, his potential appointed commissioner or which schools he would like to take over and privatize.
“He needs to hold hearings on all of it,” said Kim Schroeder, president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA). “The public has not had a chance to weigh in.”
Abele’s office emailed the Shepherd that he has met with MPS officials, parents, students and community leaders, but Abele wouldn’t commit to holding any public hearings.
Old Data Could Cause Problems
Darling and Kooyenga’s OSPP budget amendment also requires the state superintendent to release a list of eligible schools and surplus property to Abele. But the information Evers released last Thursday indicates that it’s difficult to identify which MPS schools currently have such poor performance that they qualify for the takeover.
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Earlier this year Republicans eliminated district and school report cards for the 2014-2015 school year and then changed the way that report cards would be calculated going forward. Yet the OSPP legislation requires Evers to send the most up-to-date data to Abele. Thanks to all of the Republicans’ changes, the 2013-2014 data is the most recent and the report cards in the future will show improved scores for about two-thirds of schools, especially high-poverty schools like MPS, Evers found.
Evers warned in a letter to Abele and MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver, “Using older data will not reflect recent schools improvement and may result in incorrectly identifying some schools.”
State Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee), a member of the Senate’s education committee who’s running against Abele in the spring elections, sent out a statement blasting the OSPP, saying, “Walker, the GOP and those bent on grabbing power worked behind closed doors to rush through a proposal that moved us further towards profiteering and privatization of schools in Milwaukee. As we saw [in Evers’ letter] yesterday, in their haste they have forced takeover action based on old information and stale metrics.”
Nevertheless, Abele seems intent on moving forward with the OSPP. He told CBS 58 that he’d like to create a pre-kindergarten in a vacant MPS building. His office confirmed to the Shepherd that it’s one of the options he’s exploring. MTEA’s Schroeder said that before Abele’s plan moves forward the county executive should offer more details about the school’s programming, staffing and location and also hold hearings on the school in a public setting.
