Barrett’s attempt to seize control of MilwaukeePublic Schools (MPS) from the elected school board failed to muster enoughsupport in the Legislature last week to even bring up the issue after Gov. JimDoyle called a special session. The Legislature adjourned without discussingmayoral control.
Meanwhile, the Milwaukee School Board, under theleadership of President Michael Bonds, has narrowed its national search for anew superintendent down to three finaliststwo African Americans and aLatinoall with experience in urban school districts.
Extending an olive branch, Bonds invited Barrett topersonally interview the three finalists and make a recommendation to theboard. He also named Barrett to a community panel advising the board on theselection. The diverse committee includes Alfonzo Thurman, UW-Milwaukee deanof education, state Rep. Annette Polly Williams, former Mayor Marvin Pratt,private philanthropist Julia Uihlein and prominent Latino, Hmong,American-Indian and union leaders.
The school board could select a new superintendentas soon as mid-January. Since the Legislature normally wouldn’t go back intosession until late January, state legislation drafted to allow the mayor toname the next superintendent is fast becoming moot.
So far during this season of peace, Barrett has notaccepted Bonds’ invitation to interview the three finalists, all with strongeducational credentials, who have applied for the job.
Barrett rejected an earlier compromise on a totalmayoral takeover of the Milwaukeeschool district even though, if Barrett’s campaign for governor is successful,he wouldn’t even be the mayor to control the schools.
State Rep. Tamara Grigsby and state Sen. SpencerCoggs provided the mayor a graceful way out by proposing compromise legislationthat would create a partnership between the mayor and the elected school board.
The Grigsby-Coggs bill would create anexecutive-legislative system to run city schools following the same structureas the mayor and the Common Council, the governor and the Legislature and eventhe president and the Congress.
The mayor would be the chief executive with thepower to propose school policies. The elected school board would serve as thelegislative branch acting on proposals by the mayor or by their own members.The mayor would have veto power and it would take a two-thirds majority of theschool board to override any veto.
The proposal would give Barrett more power than anymayor has ever had over Milwaukeeschools, exactly the same power he has over every city issue that passesthrough the Common Council.
The legislation also had the advantage of keepingreal power in the hands of an elected school board. After complaints thatBarrett’s takeover was anti-democratic, denying voters the power to elect theirown school board representatives, the mayoral takeover legislation retained asham school board that would have virtually no power over important educationaldecisions.
Rejecting Compromise
Rather than embrace the traditional checks andbalances the president and governors and mayors all over America operateunder, Barrett insisted the mayor should be given total, unchecked power overthe public schools.
To many, the hard line taken by Barrett seemstotally out of character for a mayor whose conciliatory, nice-guy approach topolitics is seen by his supporters as a strength and by his critics as hisgreatest weakness.
“That’s not Tom Barrett,” said one veteranpolitician on the opposite side of the school fight. Many believe the corporateleaders of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) are theones calling the shots on the mayoral takeover.
The MMAC, never considered friends of publiceducation, held private meetings for nearly a year to discuss giving the mayorcontrol of MPS before Barrett himself publicly launched his takeover campaign.
Barrett has repeatedly denied any collusion withMMAC. But it added to the conspiracy theories when Barrett announced he mightconsider appointing a businessman as the next MPS superintendent rather than aneducator.
Whatever was behind Barrett’s uncharacteristic powerplay, the longer the so-far losing battle continues, the less sense it makespolitically. As soon as Barrett announced his candidacy for governor, no onecould even say who the mayor might be who would be handed unprecedented powerover the largest and most challenging public education system in the state.
Voters around the state, already suspicious ofcandidates from Milwaukee,see Barrett embroiled in a local controversy rather than leading on stateissues. They hear he may not even move to Madisonif he is elected.
And many of the Democratic activists at home whoseenergy and support Barrett needs to be elected governor have been needlesslyalienated.
When a war is being lost anyway, wise strategistsfind a way to declare victory and withdraw.
