The Marcia Spector School District. That’s the term I used in 2005 to describe how Spector and Seeds of Health, the organization she leads, had created a set of schools in Milwaukee that were publicly funded yet independent in important ways from the conventional public schools system.
The schools were each good, and the rise of what I would call a mini district like this struck me as cutting edge.
It’s 2015 now and the Marcia Spector School District is doing well.
It now includes six schools with a total of about 1,250 students. A child can go from kindergarten through 12th grade entirely within the Seeds of Health network.
But Spector’s network is no longer cutting edge. The mini district has become a key part of the Milwaukee education landscape.
I count at least nine mini districts in Milwaukee, defined as schools that are not part of the conventional public school system and are run by organizations operating at three or more locations.
For this purpose, I’m not counting the general roster of Catholic schools, a much longer standing and not-so-mini district, but a bit of a different thing.
However, I am counting two Catholic schools that operate like mini districts.
The mini districts are enrolling about 12,500 students this year, more than 10% of the children getting publicly funded education in Milwaukee. Three are close to or above 1,900 students, which is more kids than in three-quarters of the public school districts in the state.