Is the End (of MPS) Near?

Is this the end of Milwaukee Public Schools?

I kind of doubt it, but the fact you can ask that question seriously says something about the depth of the crisis facing the state’s largest and most problem-filled school district. Put together the cuts outlined in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal  with the end of federal stimulus spending, the continuing decline in enrollment, and the every-day run of severe problems that affect MPS and you have a really ugly picture.

School Board President Michael Bonds has used the word “devastating” repeatedly in recent days. State Rep. Tamara Grigsby, a Milwaukee Democrat who is an MPS graduate herself, called Walker’s proposals “an absolute annihilation” of public education, according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  Those are strong terms.

Layoffs of hundreds of teachers, the elimination of a list programs such as a math initiative in recent years (paid for by $10 million a year in state aid), and the possible closing of a substantial number of schools all seem likely.  Will even those steps be enough to meet the financial problems? Will what results be a stable and functioning system? (I’m imagining simply the re-assignment and scheduling issues around a major wave of school closings, for example.)

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Catholic Principles of Good Stewardship of the Physical World

Catholic belief includes both the terms “dominion” and “stewardship” in discussing the relationship of human beings to the physical world.  Lucia A. Silecchia definitely prefers “stewardship.”

Drawing especially on papal encyclicals, including those of Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Benedict XVI, Silecchia said in the Simmons Lecture at Eckstein Hall on Thursday that stewardship is an appropriate model for care for the environment because the world has been entrusted to people and, as trustees, people need to put broader interests ahead of their own interests. Silecchia is a professor of law at Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Individuals need to put aside their narrow self interests to serve the larger, enduring needs of all people, Silecchia said. Indeed our own best interest is actually served by enlarging our sense of ourselves as members of communities and even the earth as a whole.

In a lecture titled, “’More Will Be Expected’: Catholic Social Thought and international Environmental Stewardship,”   Silecchia discussed basic principles of Catholic teaching that provide a framework for dealing with ecological issues.

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Will MPS Get Squeezed Extra Hard?

We’re entering uncharted territory when it comes to school issues statewide. I think it was clear from pretty far back that Gov. Scott Walker and Republican leaders in the Legislature were going to push for state employees and for teachers across the state (who are not state employees, but the state can influence their job situations) to pay significant shares of their health insurance and pension payments. But I was caught off guard by the move to take away almost all the unions’ bargaining role, as Walker proposed last week.

This is going to be a tumultuous and momentous spring and summer when it comes to education issues statewide. I wonder what all will be different when it comes time to open schools in September.

Permit me to venture into one aspect of what lies ahead that I specifically wonder about:

Walker proposed that public employees pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions and 12% of the cost of their health insurance coverage.  While I wonder how that’s going to play out across the state, I especially wonder how it will play out in Milwaukee Public Schools.

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