{"id":15252,"date":"2011-10-11T22:06:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T03:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=15252"},"modified":"2014-07-14T12:59:05","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T17:59:05","slug":"abby-ramirez-believing-in-whats-possible-for-milwaukee-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/10\/abby-ramirez-believing-in-whats-possible-for-milwaukee-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Abby Ramirez: Believing in What’s Possible for Milwaukee Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abby Ramirez wants other people to come to \u2013 and act on \u2014 the same beliefs she has: That a large majority of low-income children can become high-performing students and that the number of schools where such success is widespread can be increased sharply in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

In an \u201cOn the Issues\u201d session with Mike Gousha at Eckstein Hall on Tuesday, Ramirez described the work of Schools That Can Milwaukee<\/a>, a year-old organization that has the goal of increasing the number of students in high-performing schools to 20,000 (more than twice the current total) by 2020. Ramirez is executive director of the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you haven\u2019t seen a high-performing school, go visit one because it will change your belief in what\u2019s possible,\u201d she told about 150 people at the session hosted by Gousha, the Law School\u2019s distinguished fellow in law and public policy. She said you can tell in such a visit that the program is different \u2013 more energetic, more focused, more committed to meeting ambitious goals \u2013 than in schools where there is an underlying belief that the students aren\u2019t going to do well because of factors such as poverty. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cExpectations are huge\u201d as a factor in putting a school on the path to high levels of success, she said. She also said the leadership of the school is a crucial factor.<\/p>\n

Ramirez said the organization, affiliated with a national Schools That Can effort, was founded around three high-performing schools in Milwaukee, St. Marcus Lutheran School, Bruce-Guadalupe Community School, and Milwaukee College Prep. It is now working with two dozen schools that meet or are working to meet the standards for academic success, attendance the group uses to define a high performing school. \u00a0The large majority of students at each of the schools are from low-income homes. The schools include five from Milwaukee Public Schools; the rest are either charter schools or private schools in the publicly-funded voucher program.<\/p>\n

Ramirez said Schools That Can has three strategies for increasing the number of high performing schools: Expand the ones already here (both Milwaukee College Prep and St. Marcus have expanded substantially this year); bring up the achievement in existing schools that are willing to wade into the hard work the organization envisions; and recruit strong charter school operators from around the country to open in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

In dealing with the last route, Ramirez has been a central figure in efforts to bring Rocketship, Education, a San Jose, Calif., charter school operator, to Milwaukee. She told Gousha she hopes Rocketship will open in Milwaukee in 2013 and grow within several years to eight schools.<\/p>\n

She urged people who want to help improve Milwaukee\u2019s education picture to get involved in ways that focus on quality schooling and not on whether a school is a traditional public school, a charter school, or a voucher school. She suggested getting involved on the boards of schools, volunteering as mentors or in other roles at schools, making financial donations to schools, and advocating for quality education as part of political activity. \u201cMake education your issue,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The hour-long sessions can be viewed by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abby Ramirez wants other people to come to \u2013 and act on \u2014 the same beliefs she has: That a large majority of low-income children can become high-performing students and that the number of schools where such success is widespread can be increased sharply in Milwaukee. In an \u201cOn the Issues\u201d session with Mike Gousha […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,48,47,99,122,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-law","category-marquette-law-school","category-milwaukee","category-milwaukeepublicschools","category-public","category-speakers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}