Milwaukee – Page 36 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

The New Orleans Miracle: A Blueprint for Milwaukee?

Post author:Charles Szafir
Post published:September 27, 2013
Post category:Education & Law Milwaukee Milwaukee Public Schools Public

Recently, I had the good fortune of attending a presentation by Patrick Dobard, Superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District. It focused on the Louisiana Recovery School District program and how it helped to transform the poor, failing New Orleans schools – decimated by Hurricane Katrina – into one of the highest performing districts in the state. Given its success, it may serve as a blueprint for reforming the struggling Milwaukee Public School system.

In 2003, tired of having some of the worst schools in the country, the Louisiana state legislature created the Recovery School District. This was a special school district that would contain underperforming or failing schools throughout the state. A public school in Louisiana would be put in the Recovery District if it was underperforming for four consecutive years. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the state legislature put the majority of New Orleans’ schools in the Recovery District. The District’s superintendent, Dobard, is appointed by the state.

The concept of the Recovery School District is actually relatively simple – a superintendent is given wide-ranging powers with the goal of improving education in the District. The superintendent, with relative ease, can close schools, merge schools together, and turn traditional public schools into charter schools. For their part, parents and children in the Recovery District have more freedom to decide where to attend school.

The policy rationale behind the Recovery District is that school accountability, reduced red tape, and parental empowerment will appropriately incentivize educators to perform.

Marcoux Offers Rapid Fire of Big Thoughts on Milwaukee’s Future

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:September 24, 2013
Post category:Milwaukee Public Speakers at Marquette

“If we’re a city on the move, we’ve got to think big.”

Rocky Marcoux, commissioner of the City of Milwaukee Department of City Development, said that — and did his best to demonstrate that – in an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Eckstein Hall on Tuesday. His excitement about big ideas for Milwaukee’s future was strong enough to get him literally getting out of his chair at one point and talking throughout the hour-long session with speed and enthusiasm.

What kind of big thoughts?

Perhaps the one that was freshest was his suggestion that construction of a new sports and entertainment complex should be tied to improving life along W. Wisconsin Ave. from the Milwaukee River west. Emphasizing that he was not speaking for Mayor Tom Barrett or the Common Council and not taking a formal position, Marcoux said Wisconsin Ave. is an important asset for the city that needs help, and the closer a new arena is to that area, the more likely it would be to trigger other good developments for downtown. This would suggest locating an arena south of the vacant Park East land north of Juneau Ave. that has been suggested by others. Marcoux said perhaps the site could be several blocks to the south, where the Milwaukee Arena and Milwaukee Theatre stand now, with some or all of the block occupied by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel included. That would be from N. Third to N. Sixth Streets and from Kilbourn Ave. to State St.

Milwaukee Area Divide in Voting Is Unusually Deep, Gilbert and Franklin Say

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:September 13, 2013
Post category:Marquette Law School Media & Journalism Milwaukee Political Processes & Rhetoric Public Speakers at Marquette

It isn’t just that we disagree whether we prefer pepperoni or anchovies on our pizza. We disagree about what pepperoni and anchovies are. And we disagree in increasingly strong ways.

That’s one way that Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy at Marquette University Law School, described the sharply partisan atmosphere of American politics. He spoke Thursday in the Appellate Courtroom of Eckstein Hall in the first session of the 2013-14 season of “On the Issues with Mike Gousha.”

Franklin and Craig Gilbert, Washington bureau chief of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, presented some of the early findings of research the two are conducting on polarization in politics, especially in the Milwaukee area and Wisconsin. Gilbert is on a six-month leave from the newspaper to take part in the project, supported by the Law School’s Sheldon B. Lubar Fund for Public Policy research.