This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/another-reason-to-vote-no-on-mpss-big-252-million-referendum/

The Milwaukee Public Schools Board of Directors has scheduled an April referendum asking voters to authorize an additional $252 million in funding — a tough sell in a district with plummeting enrollment, dismal academic performance and a huge influx of cash in recent years.

Voters can find some of our initial number-crunching here.

But there’s another reason — a simple one — that voters should vote no.

The MPS Board banned police officers from schools in 2016. For four years after that, the Board allowed officers to patrol around the outside of schools but voted unanimously to prohibit even that in 2020.

It was a big mistake. By the fall semester of 2021 there were 668 calls to police from just 34 of the district’s high schools. That was up to 778 calls by the fall of 2022 and back to 623 calls in the fall semester of this school year.

A lot of people are concerned. The City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County got permission from the state to increase sales taxes as part of a deal that included putting 25 police officers back in crime-ridden schools. The city and the school district were supposed to share the approximately $2 million cost.

Eight months later, there are still no cops.

This is not altogether surprising. For too long to remember, MPS has been mired in mediocrity, unable to move forward on anything with any sort of urgency. There’s abundant evidence that more money will not produce better outcomes, but even more evidence that MPS typically moves slightly slower than the speed of your average hermit crab race.

You’d think this would be frustrating for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who worked tirelessly on the sales tax deal and recently came out in support of the MPS referendum. My guess is that it’s also pretty irritating to most cops.

We wrote a whole chapter in our 2022 Mandate for Madison on why Milwaukee needs to get cops back in schools. Milwaukee Police Association President Andrew Wagner said at that time that “when you’re talking about kids and their safety and when lives are in danger, seconds and minutes matter and it’s those response times that would really diminish if we could get those officers back.”

Police Chief Jeffrey Norman was asked about the issue at a press conference in early January.

“This is not new to the Milwaukee Police Department, having SROs, school resource officers. In fact, prior to this, we had a handpicked team of people that was part of this program. If it is not broke, don’t fix it,” he said.

Our translation: We had officers in MPS schools for years and it worked. We’re ready. We can do the same thing we did before. Nothing was broken. 

“We will be there,” he added. “The mayor is supportive of this . . . It’s just making sure that we have a collaborative plan. I know it is easier said than done. ‘Hey, just put them in there.’ But it is a process, working with the MPS Board, working with the MPS administration. Our team is engaged.”

Our translation: MPS has a bunch of ditherers and obstructionists. You try dealing with them.

I did.

“Milwaukee Public Schools continues to collaborate with stakeholders, including student groups, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association (MTEA), the Administrators and Supervisors Council (ASC), district staff, community members and the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD). 

“Our goal is to develop a plan, in partnership with MPD, that redefines the previous role of the school resource officer,” says the statement they sent me, adding they’ve actually visited public schools in Washington, D.C. and Georgia to see how they do things there. 

“We look forward to submitting our plan to the Milwaukee Board of School Directors. MPS anticipates a collaborative, positive partnership with key stakeholders moving forward.”

Our translation: 

MPS leaders aren’t in a hurry because they don’t really want to put cops in schools because progressive ideology says that cops are oppressors and those leaders care a lot more about placating the activists than protecting the good kids who want an education. 

They also care a lot about money. The sales tax deal didn’t benefit MPS directly, so they didn’t care about that money. But they do care about the referendum money. 

They contend they need the $252 million to “pay teacher and staff salaries, maintain buildings, purchase updated textbooks and materials, and keep pace with new technologies.”

Does anyone really believe MPS will keep pace with anything?

Mike Nichols is the President of the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.

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