Grit — it’s been a hot term in education. To succeed, students need grit, meaning determination, persistence, the capacity to deal with challenges, and resilience when something doesn’t go right.
Schools need grit, too. That’s true in any circumstance, but it’s especially true for schools starting up in places where the challenges are bigger.
Sure enough, grit is one of the character traits highlighted on a wall near the entrance of the Milwaukee Environmental Sciences School, 6600 W. Melvina St., which used to be the Sixty-Fifth Street School of Milwaukee Public Schools.
The goal of opening a school such as this is to add something better and different to the education scene. But launching a school is tough for something like 10,000 reasons, and growing it to fulfill its goals is even harder.
A year ago, I singled out three new schools that I thought were especially worth following. I should have made Milwaukee Environmental Sciences the fourth. As a new school year gets started, I decided to check up on the four — and the reports seem fairly encouraging.