Milwaukee Public Schools – Page 19 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Train…

Post author:Ashanti Cook
Post published:February 16, 2010
Post category:Legal Education Milwaukee Public Schools

twins Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

Serena Williams, Justin Timberlake, Yo-Yo Ma, Shirley Temple, Tiger Woods, the Olsen Twins, Michael Jackson, and many others are all examples of people who have done noteworthy things in their lives. They were all well on their way to a sucessful career, if not already in one, before reaching the age of majority. Few were necessarily child prodigies — someone who at an early age masters one or more skills at an adult level. They were simply children who learned early what they were to do with their lives.

I wonder whether it is good for parents to steer their child toward a career at an early age.

One-Upping Beyonce

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:January 20, 2010
Post category:Milwaukee Public Schools

Beyonce Here are a few moments of upbeat hopefulness for those (count me in) who find keeping an eye on Milwaukee’s education scene to be pretty somber going much of the time.

There are three Hope Lutheran schools in Milwaukee, each serving low-income north side students, each part of the private-school voucher program, and each with high aims when it comes to academics and character traits. The schools have a variety of contests across the year. In the fall, they had a “Hope Idol” contest.

The winning entry was a video made by sixth-grade students from the Hope Fortis school, 3601 N. Port Washington Rd. It’s a take-off on Beyonce’s hot song and video, “Single Ladies.” This is one is called “Scholar Ladies.” The students’ effort is picking up steam as a YouTube video — there have been more than 100,000 hits on it, it’s been featured on CNN, and the student are determined to find ways to promote it until they get at least 1,000,000 hits.

In the students’ version, the goal is not to “put a ring on it” but to get high grades by working hard, and to keep your eye on 2016 — the year their class will graduate high school.

How Lonely Was that Walk?

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:January 14, 2010
Post category:Milwaukee Milwaukee Public Schools

The clock in my car said 12:34 p.m. Thursday while I waited for a car to pass before I pulled out of my parking spot on N. 53 rd St. I watched as the car turned on to W. Vliet and immediately pulled in front of the Milwaukee Public Schools central administration building. The passenger in the front seat got out and slowly walked by himself to the front door of the building.

It was Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. And he was playing out a scene in what appears to have become a lose-lose political situation for him.

The bid by Governor Jim Doyle, Barrett, and others to overhaul governance of MPS, giving the mayor dominant power over the school system, is on life support, at best. The effort is deadlocked in the Legislature. It appears to be decidedly on the unpopular end of sentiment in Milwaukee, especially among African Americans. And several days of pretty intense efforts to reach some form of compromise with backers of a less-extensive plan to shift power in MPS pretty much blew up on Wednesday. The two sides simply and apparently irresolveably disagree on how much power a mayor should have over MPS.