Saturday, September 26, 2009

Congresswoman Moore: mayoral control won't help MPS

Milwaukee Congresswoman Gwen Moore has an excellent op ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Crossroads section.

She writes:

There's no question that the Milwaukee Public Schools district has challenges to overcome; not a person in this debate would argue otherwise. But MPS's achievement gap and a 69% graduation rate are borne of our city's vicious cycles of poverty, joblessness, skyrocketing teen pregnancy rates and the perverted public policies that send millions of Milwaukee's state education dollars to the suburbs.

I wish a simple change of governance could fix these challenges. But I have yet to see evidence that placing the board under the mayor's control - any mayor's - is a magic wand that will eviscerate the achievement gap, which has been caused by factors well outside the control of the elected School Board.

The entire article is linked here.