Overall, the number of bright spots on the Milwaukee education scene is increasing and there’s more reason for optimism. Someone who has a good handle on these things tried to convince me of this recently.
He made a pretty good case. I’m not exactly giddy — as you will see — but there are promising things happening. I’ve seen more willingness lately in some places to confront issues of quality, both overall and at specific schools. There are some new schools being run by talented leaders. There’s even occasional evidence of less acrimony among those involved in Milwaukee’s sometimes befuddling education landscape.
But when the overall indicators of student success remain generally so troubling — test scores, graduation rates, attendance, suspensions, the gap between kids from have and have-not backgrounds – we still have a crisis.
On that mixed note, I offer some awards for outstanding performance in 2016 in education matters in Milwaukee. In fact, there’s so much to say, I’m going to stretch this into two weeks, so come back next Sunday for more.