The MICAH Education Committee has worked on three major campaigns and projects over the past year--one relating to the past, one to the immediate present, and one to the future.
For the past few years, our focus has been on health care in Milwaukee Public Schools. We worked successfully to secure BadgerCare state funding for 24 new full-time nurses who are now working in 37 MPS high-poverty schools. At our initiative, an MPS School Nurse Advisory Group, which is widely representative of community health agencies, has been established by the state Dept. of Health Services to implement and monitor this program. This is a very important development because it brings diverse agencies together to review and expand health care in MPS. MICAH co chairs this board with the state Dept. of Health.
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From 2009 - 2010, we successfully fought the proposed takeover of MPS by the mayor of Milwaukee. We worked with a coalition of 28 community groups, such as NAACP, Educators Network for Social Justice, and Esperanza Unida. Meeting weekly for the past 6 months, our Coalition to Stop the MPS Takeover entered into a spirited defense of the democratic election of a locally-based school board with real authority, which all takeover proposals would have eliminated or crippled. We strategized, educated, held rallies and press conferences, picketed, talked to legislators, and confronted the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel over what we see as its one-sided reporting. We provided crucial support for legislators who opposed the takeover. With powerful political figures, the mainstream presss, and the MMAC and business community all aligned against us, our unfunded coalition of volunteers prevailed; and the takeover attempt died in the state legislature.
There is more than school governance at issue. The model for the takeover was the one established in Chicago public schools by now-U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. There mayoral control has meant the establishment of "turnaround schools" resulting in disruption to students' lives and safety the establishment of privately run charter shcools with lowered teacher standards; the elimination of parent governance groups; and the banning of the teacher's union. Many impoverished children have been left behind in the wake of this "reform," deemed a failure even by some of its proponents, such as the Commercial Club of Chicago. Milwaukee has dodged this bullet. Our Coalition continues to meet to identify other areas of collaborative action. For more information, see "A MICAH Education Committee Position Paper."
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Currently, our major project is the development of existing MPS schools serving primarily high-poverty students into Community Schools. We see our role as being a catalyst, working to bring together key stakeholders, such as non-profit agencies which are already providing after-school services to such schools, and MICAH congregations. Our first step is to develop one school as a pilot project, and we are working toward that end with Hopkins Street School and Hephatha Lutheran Church.
Click here for an explanation of the principles, nature and benefits of a Community School. In addition, a fuller explanation is available from the national Coalition for Community Schools, which is providing valuable resources and counsel.
We see community schools as a community-empowering path to reform. We invite participation from all who would like to assist us in getting this off the ground.
