I watched President Barack Obama’s first inaugural address four years ago with hundreds of students at Northwest Secondary School.
The truth is, the adults in the room were paying attention, but hardly any of the kids were. They were noisy and unfocused. Maintaining control was clearly a challenge and priority for the staff. Whatever anyone thinks about hope and change in terms of Obama – not my subject here – I left the Milwaukee Public Schools building near N. 76th St. and W. Silver Spring Drive that day feeling unhopeful about change there.
With barely a ripple, the Milwaukee School Board voted a couple weeks ago to make official what Superintendent Gregory Thornton’s administration effectively set in place a year ago: The school will be closed at the end of this year.
The decision comes a year after MPS leaders took the extraordinary step of pulling more than 500 eighth- and ninth-graders out of the school midyear, citing, at various times, the poor academic results, safety issues and the inability to find qualified teachers willing to work there. (My reaction, in order, is ugh, ugh and wow.)
The demise of Northwest Secondary speaks to several major issues shaping MPS and Milwaukee education in general. Among them: