The National Conversation (Raw)

Memo to the Mayor: Milton & Milwaukee

HT Way Up North

Eastbrook Academy: Excellence in the city

When liberals talk about diversity and excellence in education, this is what they say they really want but will never get! The solution has little to do with money and everything to do with character, vision and rigor in an academic environment. Loving the baby Jesus also hacks off liberal educrats . . . but with privacy comes freedom.

Freedom!

It's all there at Eastbrook Academy. Charlie Sykes and yours truly discussed the academy on Sykes' show this morning.

You can listen to it here.

Private or Public?

Should the Obamas, like good liberals, send their kids to Washington, D.C. public schools? Or a private school like, Sidwell Friends?

Hmmmm.

Gosh, this is a tough one. Sacrifice their children on the altar of liberalism or give them a life-changing advantage that will all but guarantee their success in life?

Wow. This is really hard.

Should the Obamas be an example, a symbol to all that value public education, or do what most of the American presidents of European descent (except Jimmy Carter) have done. ☺ 

Elite education vs. Public education.

Who should the new first family trust to educate their children?

Hurrah!

MPS to explore dissolving district!

The Milwaukee School Board voted Thursday night to begin looking into dissolving the Milwaukee Public Schools system. The completely unexpected 6-to-3 vote followed a gloomy assessment of the short- and long-term financial situation of MPS from Superintendent William Andrekopoulos and several board members. JSOnline

Finally! Something to get excited about. I know that this vote was symbolic but so what! The door is cracked, we can see the light! Time to rush in and demolish the system!

Then there was one.

Scratch Riverside High school from my list of good MPS schools.  I’ve been trying to cover for them, but it’s obvious that they have been infected, too. 

Yesterday Milwaukee police officers were injured when they tried to break up a fight (water balloons).  A crowd of kids turned on the police, sending three of the officers to the hospital! Also involved in the melee was a parent!

Riverside High School students and a parent beat up three police officers! And nobody got shot? That’s the miracle here, that the police showed restraint, as they were getting beat down by a mob.

This kind of stupidity by the students of Riverside High School results in automatic expulsion from the “good schools” list. As of now, the only MPS high school worthy of consideration is Rufus King. That leaves a handful of elementary schools, no middle schools, and King.

The worse MPS gets, the more it seems to cost, in cash and reputation.

Excellence Starts Here...

I attended my kids’ weekly Monday morning school assembly the other day and had my mind blown (My kids attend a private school which means I choose to pay their tuition, plus foot the bill for the thousands of kids every year who drop out of MPS.). 

School Choice.

Anyway, at the assembly the students were demonstrating their skills.

The program started with my daughter's 1st grade class reciting all 50 states and their capitals to the tune of Yankee Doodle.

Impressive.

Next came the mind blower when the Academy's 5th grade class recited the Gettysburg Address followed by Walt Whitman’s "O Captain! My Captain!" in unison without a missing a single beat.

Wow.

The 5th graders followed the recitation with a PowerPoint presentation in which the students demonstrated their grammatical abilities when they diagramed sentences from the Gettysburg Address...I’m not kidding. The teacher had each student's name on a deck of cards, shuffled the deck, drew ten cards, and called the selected students to the front.  Then one by one, the students explained the grammatical analysis with enthusiasm and pluck. It was truly jaw dropping.
(click to enlarge)
This is the school where the 7th graders memorize the Declaration of Independence, and students at all grade levels memorize lengthy Bible passages.

It’s Amazing.

The school building is not state of the art, far from it. However, somehow these kids get something that is rare and beautiful these days... a solid classical education rooted in God, country and community.

Oh yeah, the school also participates in the Milwaukee school choice program, and is the most ethnically and economically diverse school in Milwaukee. Eastbrook Academy is everything the left says it wants but we rarely see produced when it comes to education in the city...

Success.

Passing The Buck

"We're doing a lousy job of sending kids out of the classroom."
-William Andrekopoulos Superintendent Milwaukee Public Schools & National Joke

Andrekopoulos added that Milwaukee Public Schools may have the highest suspension rates in the country. Nearly half of all ninth-graders, for example, are suspended at least once a year, and many of those students are suspended multiple times.  (Excerpt from JSOnline)

Let me see, 13% tax increase last year, highest dropout rate in the nation and now the highest suspension rate in the nation. Instead of “Excellence Starts Here”, the banner above all MPS schools should say:

Milwaukee Public Schools: We lead to fail.

Family Matters

“Fewer students and teachers, more psychologists, social workers and nurses, and no major changes in the overall approach to teaching children — those are among the highlights of a $1.2 billion budget proposal by Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William Andrekopoulos for 2007-'08.”

So starts an article that appeared in the April 28th edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In the heart of the article Mr. Anderkopoulos made a statement that gave me pause. He said that in a perfect world, “the Milwaukee Public Schools would not need to serve children breakfast. In a perfect world, children would not come to school hungry or ill, but in real-world Milwaukee, they do. If the School District doesn't provide these services, who will?"

Good question.

In other words, in “real-world Milwaukee” who should take care of sick and hungry children?

I understand Mr. Andrekopoulous’ need to get something into students' stomachs in order for his teachers to get anything into their heads, but is it too much to expect parents to care for their own children before they send them off to school, before you ask taxpayers to do it for them?

Here's what really bothers me: Why do liberals continuously make excuses for Americans of African descent?  If a parent, for whatever reason, chooses to abdicate his or her parental responsibilities, should the state or any of its agencies address the problem by serving hungry kids biscuits, bagels and juice?

If schools expect taxpayers to shell out more and more money to pay for these “services,” they should at least have the guts to tell them why costs are going up.

They won’t, so I will.

It's because more than 70 percent of black children born in the city of Milwaukee are born outside of marriage. It's because the fathers of these children are MIA, and it’s because young unwed mothers are using the school system as a glorified daycare. These are the people who are sending sick and hungry kids to school.

This speaks to the heart of the MPS demise. The institution has failed because the black family has failed. This is the “real-world Milwaukee” to which the Superintendent referred.

There is a direct correlation between the state of the black family in this city and the state of Milwaukee Public Schools. The institution will not survive if the family doesn’t exist. Our dysfunction is their dysfunction. The two are symbiotic in their destruction.

Now, who's willing to address the real problem? The MPS proposed plan doesn’t address the problem. It’s just another liberal band-aid slapped on a symptom.

Update: I linked to the blog site Milwaukee Rising under the real problem link. Ms. Schuldt's post
Violence, the schools and the community is stacked with numbers, and the numbers are devastating.