The response to our series on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black Milwaukee students ran the gamut from shock to frustration to anger.
A retired African American educator said she shed tears upon learning our students were on the short end of the widest academic achievement gap in the country.
But anger and tears will do nothing to change the appalling status quo.
Unless you use those tears for motivation and your frustration turns into action, you may witness the painful and unnecessary transition from what was once a mecca for African American migrants to an urban desert.
Even the most optimistic pundit interviewed for our series could not visualize a sanguine future for Black students. Or our city.
Instead, the common assumption is we are witnessing the loss of another generation of innocent Black children.
And with the handicap of illiteracy will come poverty, despair, poor health, and criminality in far too many cases.
This is not to say they were born with that handicap or are genetically predisposed to immortality. Instead, they are products of their environment, including being trapped in the Culture of Poverty and caught up in the paradigm of educational apartheid.
Moreover, don’t make the mistake of blaming the current malaise — the nation’s worse academic performance—on the pandemic.
The pandemic only marginally worsened what was an abysmal reality for most Black students three years ago.
Before the pandemic, Black student performance wasamong the worst in the country. Only one in 10 could readat grade level, which was to be expected since we’ve hadthe lowest reading proficiency rates for African Americanfourth and eighth graders in the country since 2010.
Worse still, little to nothing has been done to remedy thataffront.
The pandemic exacerbated existing negative paradigms.
The Milwaukee School Board’s decision to continue virtual learning protocols long after other local and suburbanschools ended theirs, played a role in that paradigm.
As did various negative social indicators, which combined to earn Milwaukee the reputation as the worst cityfor Black Americans.
Our nation-leading poverty rate played a critical role.While many Black middle-class and specialty school students could adapt to virtual paradigms, their low-income
counterparts were hindered by their economic plight, including access to computers and internet services.
Like health disparities and economic woes, the pandemic brought these academic realities to light—again. Indeed, educational apartheid has been a part of the local landscape for records.
So has political, cultural, and economic apathy.
As the series pointed out, Milwaukee now hosts the broadest academic achievement gap in the entire United States of America. The ‘majority’ of Milwaukee schools failed to meet state expectations, as the graduation rate dropped below 70%.
Less than 20% of Black children can read at grade level (rated as proficient), and math scores are second to last in the nation, only behind Detroit.
When the embarrassing reading status first came to light, a coalition created by former MPS Superintendent Howard Fuller responded with a unique and comprehensive reading project that remarkably improved reading scores by one full grade during a summer of intensive tutoring.
But two years later, the program died when funding dried up, and no government agency, including the public school system or the state, was willing to step up to the plate.
That was as close to a remedy to reversing our reading dilemma and thus closing the academic achievement gap as we’ve witnessed.
You can count on one hand the number of proposals to emerge from various governmental agencies since then. None, however, have seen the light of day.
The rationale for dismissing the proposals is as alarming as their rejection, marred in partisan bickering and union politicking.
Thus, it should not have come as a surprise when a state Republican plan to allow a local government agency to take over up to three failing schools was ostracized. It’s proponents were labeled ‘racists and traitors to public education.’
The absurdity of that assertion rests with the applicant being former Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who enlisted the assistance of nationally regarded African American school superintendent Demond Means.
So vicious were the attacks by the teachers union and former MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver, that Means, who many felt would someday take on the challenge of MPS, literally left town. (Driver later apologized, reportedly suggesting she was ‘forced’ to undermine the proposal.)
And the wrap-around services that Abele brought to the table went unused, even though they would have positively impacted low-income families and students.
Making matters worse, Democrats offered nothing to replace it. Instead, DPI (state Department of Public Instruction) changed the criteria for a ‘failing school!’
In other words, the schools were still underachieving, and the students continued to fail. But on paper, their plight was obscured by red tape.
We can point to several other initiatives that met with similar obstacles or diversions, the most obvious being MPS Board Director Aisha Carr’s innovative proposal to undertake a feasibility study of existing and new proposals to close the achievement gap.
Her proposal included a parent engagement project, isolating a day of the week for planning and analysis, and a renewed focus on mental health. The fifth day would also be used for career programs, tutoring, or college courses.
A board committee disingenuously rejected her proposal.
A state reading proposal that drew bi-partisan support and would focus on children handicapped by their inability to read at grade level, was rejected by the governor, who said his veto was because of a lack of appropriate funding for the proposal.
That ‘excuse’ flies in the face of logic, given the state is sitting on millions in unused federal stimulus funds and an additional $6 billion in surplus revenues.
If there is one message you don’t need a diploma to understand, it’s that neither the educracy nor politicians are able or willing to provide our low-income children with the quality education they deserve; that other children automatically receive based on family income or color.
That may be why the failing status quo has not raised an eyebrow beyond the politically impotent Black community.
That reality must change, which is fundamentality the reason for the series.
The series caught the attention of the state NAACP and several key Black officials who are bringing voice to this problem.
NAACP state president Wendell Harris has gone so far as to discuss a lawsuit.
He is also lobbying to replicate the successful reading programs implemented in Mississippi or the personalized student paradigm used in several charters and the Brown Deer School District (the only district in the entire state not hampered by a Black/White achievement gap).
A recently formed organization of Black activists and North Division high school alums called ‘Call to Action,’ are exploring the possibility of fundamental changes at that once respected school.
If successful (which means it will not be dismissed or corrupted bythe educracy), it could provide a template for an educational revolution.
In the interim, Black families are fleeing MPS by the thousands. Nearly 40,000 students are today enrolled in private (public) schoolsunder the school choice program and charters. Another 6,000 haveabandoned MPS for suburban districts under open enrollment.
Collectively, they make up nearly 47% of local students. An educrat with a vested interest in MPS surviving as is, once posited, the districtcan only sustain itself with a minimum of 50% of the local student population. Both time and students are running short.
Respected researcher and Marquette University Fellow Alan Borsukspeculated that Milwaukee would suffer the consequences if the educational exodus continues down this track. Milwaukee is the state’seconomic engine. Without a workforce and a strong economy, the entire state will suffer.
If the loss of thousands of Black children who have been allowed toslip through the cracks is not enough to move the community, the lossof our state’s economic engine may be motivation.
Mask it, ignore it, or put your head in the sand, but unless we address this concern, we are not only dooming a large segment of our community to second-class citizenship, but also our city.
As we have long said, education is the last battleground of the civilrights movement. Previous generations fought for our children to sitat the lunch counter. It is now this generation’s turn to make sure theycan read the menu.
The Community Journal is open to assuming whatever role necessary to arm, coordinate, and strategize on a battle plan. But withoutyour help, it’s a war we cannot win.
To lose this battle is to return to the era that sparked the desegregation lawsuit and a legislative proposal to carve out an autonomousand independent Black school district.