Shut It Down!

(There are a few things that need to be made clear before you read this article. First, there are many excellent teachers in the Milwaukee Public School System. Second, there are many hard-working, success-driven students who are striving for excellence in the Milwaukee Public Schools. I’ve seen the latter, know a lot of the former and respect the challenges that they face daily. Having said that, here we go…)

I live a few blocks from Washington High School, a once-great educational institution in the heart of Sherman Park. Everyday I drive past it as I carpool my kids and a few others to private school. The contrasts are stark and sad, and also a snapshot of the state of education in America.

Here’s what it comes down to. Most parents who have the means to do otherwise don’t send their kids to Milwaukee Public middle schools. If they are true believers in M.P.S., they do all they can to get their kids to Rufus King High School or Riverside High, the lone outposts in a once great system.

Just about all the rest of M.P.S. is a train wreck. You’ve got five elementary and two high schools that are actually sound, but on the whole, M.P.S. has de-evolved into a system that exists solely for the purpose of sustaining itself. By that I mean teachers' salaries and their Rolls-Royce benefits. There is power in the union.

The many dedicated M.P.S. teachers mentioned above – those not remaining solely for the purposes of sustaining and enriching themselves and their union – must do their jobs in the face of  lock downs, gunplay, truancy, riots, fights, sexual assault, drugs, intimidation, bathroom copulation, rape, gang fights, rowdiness, even bomb threats.

What thinking parent would willingly send a child to the moral minefield that underlies so much of public education? Simple. Those who think they don’t have a choice, don’t care, or who don’t understand who is ultimately responsible for their child’s education — not the state, not the teachers, but the parents!

It is time for the state to return to its rightful owner the responsibility of educating its populace. For too long we, the public, have given to public educators more than they should be asked to do. If parents can’t live up to their responsibility, the desolation will be in their own homes, not in the educational welfare system known as M.P.S.

I’m proposing we shut the system down. Am I throwing the baby out with the bath water?

I don’t like the analogy.

When the U.S. Navy tried to pay a contractor $104.99 for a $4.99 screwdriver, the howls and wails of “government waste” could be heard across the land. And rightfully so.

What are our tax dollars buying us in education, with a graduation rate of 45%? The Navy still needed that screwdriver but the taxpayers are no longer willing to pay inflated prices for an inferior product.

Neither should we.

Last week Ms. Deborah Chamberlain of Wauwatosa, an author and principal of an advertising agency and a woman who is far more strategic and insightful than I am, laid out an compassionate exit strategy with a timetable. (Liberals should love this!) Though still extreme, I believe she is dead on.

If you want to read more of what’s wrong with this system besides what you read in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, click here, here and here.

Here is my last post on this subject. (At least I'm consistent!)

UPDATE: Download the podcast of my conversation with Dr. Corey Thompson from Sunday nights radio show.

Comments

[Nick]

Be careful about saying things like this too loudly. You may end up being labeled a crazy Libertarian. Not that this is a bad thing... I revel in the label... but not all do. ;)

[Peter]

James.
Absolutely brilliant! It is time to close that rat hole down. There's no hope of ever reforming it, especially since the teachers' union now runs the school board, and they won't even take steps to safeguard their own members.