WILL President and General Counsel, Rick Esenberg, writing in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
“My colleague CJ Szafir has an op-ed in Saturday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the proposed Opportunity Schools Partnership Program. The OSPP would, among other things, allow the Milwaukee County Executive to appoint a Commissioner who could run selected failing public schools in the City of Milwaukee. It is comparable to “opportunity” or “recovery” school districts that have been established around the country with some success.
Of course, as CJ points out, the proposal has been attacked as “racist” because … well, just because. It is apparently an act of bigotry to care about poor black kids attending failing schools. The OSPP might not work, but MPS has had twenty five years of increased funding and has failed to turn these schools around. Trying something new can’t hurt.”