This came through on the email this morning; you can get some background from the newspaper here.
Hello friends of MPS,
As you might have seen in the news, the MPS board took a needed step last week, the first step in a push back against No Child Left Behind's waste of our district resources. We voted not to hire a pack of overseers for the new federally-imposed DIFI bureaucracy until the federal government sent a check with dedicated funds to pay for these positions.
Not surprisingly, the money's been found and it's already in the district's pockets. (Ha!) An emergency meeting of the board's Finance and Personnel committee has been called for tomorrow night to approve the creation of this bureaucracy.
As a taxpayer and a mom who has invested a lot into the success of MPS and the children it serves, I'm sick of seeing our money go down the drain to meet increasingly more bizarre NCLB requirements. Because MPS has entered DIFI ("District Identified for Improvement") status, the feds are forcing the state to impose a series of interventions on us. Some of these interventions include creating a new bureaucracy to oversee the new mandated curriculum we'll be teaching during a new mandated school-day schedule.
Even if the feds were actually paying for these (and the many other) mandates -- which they're not -- it would still be wrong to approve these positions. NCLB is a distraction away from what really will help our children, like smaller class sizes and meaningful home/school connections.
If you can, please come tell the Finance and Personnel committee what you think:
Special Meeting of the Finance & Personnel Committee
Tuesday, Jan. 22nd at 6 p.m.
MPS Central Services * 5225 W. Vliet St.
Sorry for the late notice; I just found out about this this afternoon.
Jennifer Morales,
Member of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors
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