Geoffrey Carter, a Milwaukee Public Schools English teacher for 25 years, got tired of the drumbeat of negative reporting on MPS and its students, the exaggerated rumors of chaos, the emphasis on failure at the expense of the system’s successes. After retiring in 2013, he began working on a novel that examines the assault on public education, The P.S. Wars.
Recently published by Milwaukee’s HenschelHAUS Publishing, The P.S. Wars tracks the struggle of an urban high school’s students and faculty—and the surrounding community—against the encroachment of privatization by a corrupt corporation. “I wanted to give the students and teachers a voice. They are underrepresented,” Carter says. “We keep hearing that MPS is a terrible institution. I want to put a human face on urban schools.”
Carter continues to work in education since retirement, mentoring incoming teachers as well as students who have been expelled from MPS in sessions held at Sherman Park’s Boys and Girls Club. “Especially after 2010, teachers in Wisconsin have been vilified. The entire profession has been vilified,” he says. “Many kids in MPS are suffering from poverty and fractured families. There are good and bad teachers, but the problems are very much exaggerated. Phenomenal young people are getting into the teaching profession even though it’s not as inviting a career as it used to be.”
Geoffrey Carter reads from his novel at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 19 at Boswell Book Co.
