The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Alan J. Borsuk
“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. As the portion of the city’s children getting publicly funded education outside of the traditional Milwaukee Public Schools system rises, the non-MPS landscape becomes more significant. And that landscape is maturing and changing. The era characterized by one-off charter or private schools, many of them small, is waning. Larger and more professional run networks of schools are emerging as central to education in the city. As I said in this space last week, the MPS mountain is getting smaller, and the molehills of mini districts outside the traditional system are getting bigger. More specifically, the percentage of children attending schools whose teachers are employed by MPS goes down one to two percentage points a year and is now at 56%. Where are the other 44%? More than half are in private (almost all religious) schools that are part of the publicly funded voucher program. A bit under a third are in charter schools that largely set their own educational course and hire their own teachers. About one in seven (more than 7,500 students) are enrolled in public schools outside Milwaukee, mostly using the state’s open enrollment law.”(more)