Finally!

Welcome, Advocates! This post here is the prelude to a series. Part one of the series was posted Monday, 6/13, and will continue from there

I have been waiting, anxiously, for the Summer issue of Rethinking Schools to go online. Today, it seems that it has.

Let me explain why I'm excited, and, perhaps, put some of the more cryptic of the last week's posts into some context: Many of you probably know that the Milwaukee Public Schools is currently suffering under a plan to dismantle high schools and turn them into multiplexes of small schools. This idea, like many others, sprang fully formed from our superintendent, like Athena from the head of Zeus. He read, I'm sure, about successful small schools and, without considering the full history of the small-schools movement, decided it had to be done here. As usual, the idea was heartily endorsed by the local paper.

Now, I believe in small schools. I went to a liberal arts college where the liberal was more important than the arts. We studied up on all the classic small schools; Deborah Meier and Ted Sizer were like gods to us. One of my most treasured books is a dog-eared copy of Horace's Compromise.

Trouble is, every single successful small school that we ever studied began in the same way: A group of involved parents, teachers, students, and community members recognized a need and democratically created a solution from the bottom up. Did you notice what was missing there? That's right--administration. When we studied school reform, we found that the best role for administration is to be supportive, but not controlling. What we have here in Milwaukee is exactly the opposite. It is the administration that is pushing for the creation of these small-school communities, not the community itself.

Which brings us to the current job conundrum. The principal we have had for the last three years believes in the power of the large comprehensive high school. I do, too; I am the product of one, and I turned out okay. Quite a few of these are large schools. And this principal stood firmly in the way of any attempt to break up the school and undermine the quality programs we offer. The rest of us also have bought into this, and we have redoubled our efforts to not only teach well (which we always did) but make ourselves look good on the state tests, too. For example, this year we leapt from a 74% testing participation rate to 97%. But our principal's opposition to multiplexing, we believe, displeased the superintendent. And, since principals are appointed by the superintendent, and we are all aware of the plan to multiplex as many high schools as possible, it is with trepidation that we face our principal's retirement in a few days.

The superintendent, aware of our trepidation (and attendant restlessness), did what I describe in this post from last night. He teased us by saying he'd come out and have a conversation with us, and then canceled just a few hours before without giving a reason.

And we were so hoping he would come, too. We were going to present him with a copy of the Summer issue of Rethinking Schools, and ask him to address some of the questions and issues raised therein.

At any rate, this is what I plan to do over the next week or so--I will take you through some of what, to me, are the most interesting and pertinent articles in the magazine, and begin to address how those stories and essays add to the debate we're currently having here in Milwaukee.

Oh, wait. Did I say "debate"? I didn't really mean that, since there is no debate. There is no one, anywhere, approaching this plan to dismantle every high school and turn them into multiplexes with a critical eye. The local news loves our "reformer" superintendent. The school board has a majority that fawns over him as well. The only voices of dissent or rising concern about this plan and its ramifications are the teachers being forced into multiplexes and squozen out of decisions affecting their professional lives.

I am one such voice. I will not be quiet any longer.