{"id":11068,"date":"2024-06-06T20:27:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T20:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=11068"},"modified":"2024-06-06T21:03:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T21:03:36","slug":"gov-evers-silent-on-call-to-intervene-in-mps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=11068","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Evers silent on call to intervene in MPS"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/gov-evers-silent-on-call-to-intervene-in-mps\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Former MPS superintendent says the governor should appoint Special Master\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n
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Gov. Tony Evers remains silent on the call for him to intervene in the Milwaukee Public Schools meltdown and use his education background to set up a new governance structure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bill Andrekopoulos, MPS superintendent for eight years until his retirement in 2010 and an educator in that district for 38 years, said in a story published by the Badger Institute Wednesday<\/a> that unless the school district was willing to yield completely to outside reform, nothing \u2014 not the financial bungling or low student performance \u2014 would change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The governor, Andrekopoulos said, ought to appoint a Special Master, who would create an advisory panel of perhaps seven members to run MPS for three to five years. The panel would then decide on a new structure for the district, perhaps giving responsibility to the mayor of Milwaukee. The mayor could then appoint community stakeholder board members.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that has never been disrupted in at least 40 years is the governance of MPS, and it\u2019s time to be disrupted for the benefit of the kids and the community,\u201d Andrekopoulos told the Badger Institute in a wide-ranging interview. \u201cThe governor, the legislative leaders, the mayor, the Common Council president and the MMAC have an opportunity to make significant changes to the governance structure of MPS. It\u2019s time for a higher authority to intervene.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Evers, a former state Superintendent of Public Instruction, has a unique opportunity given his skill set to take charge of the Milwaukee Public Schools, said Andrekopoulos.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that MPS Superintendent Keith Posley had resigned, set to give up his $300,000 annual salary at the end of June and take with him a $160,000 severance, Andrekopoulos wondered if anyone would finally listen to those angry speakers at the Milwaukee Public Schools Board hearing Monday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearly everyone who called for Posley to be fired also said it was time to clean house.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrekopoulos\u2019 plan for reform would almost certainly face political resistance from the Milwaukee Teachers\u2019 Education Association, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

District leadership, elected and administrative, and the DPI, have a lot to answer for the events leading up to Posley\u2019s resignation under pressure, he added. Chief among the questions is why or how district administrators could be so slow to respond to problems with some of its most basic funding sources. While it wasn\u2019t until mid-May that the public became aware that the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services was suspending MPS\u2019 Head Start program, a check of board meeting minutes by the Badger Institute found references to \u201cdeficiencies\u201d in the program going back more than a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The federal Administration for Children and Families in an April 26 letter to the board<\/a> cited physically and verbally abused, maltreated, and unsupervised children. Without some remediation, Head Start might withhold an estimated $10.5 million in funding for next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike some federal programs that are little more than slush funds for school districts, Head Start provides very specific guidelines and benchmarks for spending and performance, Andrekopoulos said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs superintendent, I went through an (Head Start) audit,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s shocking to me when Head Start provides a template for remediation that it could be ignored.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Approximately a week later, Posley made public a letter from John Johnson, deputy state superintendent for DPI, asking for six audits and reports<\/a> for the years 2023 through 2025, several of them overdue by more than eight months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The language of the letter is brutal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The letter refers to a \u201cpattern of submitting incomplete data\u201d and warns the district that without swift compliance DPI would withhold a special education services payment for June that could be at least $15 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

State general aid payments in the \u201ctens of millions\u201d of dollars to the district were at risk, a DPI spokesperson told a local paper<\/a>. The failure of by far the largest school district in the state to provide required revenue estimates could potentially rob other districts of revenue, the spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MPS board member Darryl Jackson has said he has been \u201cin the dark about quite a bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it is possible Jackson, a member of the MPS\u2019 Committee on Accountability, Finance and Personnel, and other committee members didn\u2019t know the financial records debacle was coming to a head, he and a quorum were in attendance for a board meeting<\/a> back on Dec. 21 when district chief financial officer Martha Kreitzman responded to an older audit critical of her office\u2019s financial reporting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kreitzman said she hired two contractors, Robert Half and Protiviti, to reorganize the Department of Finance. In addition to making financial reporting a separate entity, a financial reporting checklist had been created, she told the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever been faced with a challenge and didn\u2019t know what direction to go?\u201d she told the board. \u201cThe challenge seemed impossible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, she painted an optimistic picture. \u201cThis year compared to last year we met most of all our deadlines now,\u201d she said. \u201cThings have gotten a little more difficult as we close out the financial reporting. We made all or most of our deadlines to the auditors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is almost nothing in the public record of any role played in all of this by MPS\u2019 Office of Accountability and Efficiency. The office was created in 2010 by then Board President Michael Bonds to act as a watchdog of the administration reporting to the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bonds was convicted in 2019 in connection with a bribery scheme involving a Philadelphia charter school operator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are also questions about DPI and why it waited to publicly disclose the problems until after a $252 million referendum vote April 2 that was decided by two percentage points<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cConvenient how DPI didn\u2019t release info about MPS\u2019 failure to report financial data before a $252M referendum went to voters, despite the district missing deadlines months earlier. DPI was well aware of it, considering their frequent meetings with the district about the reports,\u201d wrote Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, on Twitter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Born told the Badger Institute that while it probably cannot be proven that DPI dragged its feet, Gov. Evers and state Superintendent Jill Underly were vocal supporters of the referendum that was always expected to be close.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Evers and several DPI officials declined to respond to emails asking for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDPI has been enabling MPS for a long time. This has been years in the making and finally it\u2019s coming to a head,\u201d Born said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked about Andrekopoulos\u2019 proposal to have Evers head a reform effort going forward, his frequent political sparring partner, Born, said he agreed that the change had to come from somewhere outside of the school district.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people should know that this is a big deal and that something like this just doesn\u2019t happen in the course of daily governance,\u201d Born said. \u201cWherever it comes from, the mayor, the county executive, wherever. It\u2019s time for leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.\u00a0Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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