Education Reform # 3 – Fixing the Milwaukee Public Schools

The next installment on my journey into the world of education reform is a departure from my first two posts. So far I have been thinking and writing about Michelle Rhee as the most prominent voice in the national dialog on the topic, and grappling with why her policies upset me. My introduction to Rhee came through her appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show, and I have been using online print media, online reference material, and online video sources (Washington Post, Wikipedia, Oprah.com, and youtube.com) to further inform my opinion. The upshot of my analysis and reflections on Rhee suggested to me that her slash-and-burn style of reform is only scratching the surface. There are many, many issues beyond teacher competency to confront in education reform. For a change of pace I have turned my attention to a new topic based on a report I found in the stacks at the UWFox library.
Fixing the Milwaukee Public Schools: The Limits of Parent Driven Reform (Dodenhoff, 2007) is a report from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Inc. who self identify as

“a nonpartisan, not-for-profit Institute working to engage and energize Wisconsinites and others in discussions and timely action on key public policy issues… to identify and promote public policies in Wisconsin which are fair, accountable and cost effective."

The purpose of the study was to examine two of the several reform strategies that the Milwaukee Public Schools have embraced to combat high dropout rates – 32% in MPS vs. 9% statewide (Dodenhoff, p.3) – and low scores in the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE) or Wisconsin Alternate Assessments (WAA).

These two reform strategies are parental involvement and public school choice. Supporters of parental involvement make the point that

“even first-rate schools are limited in their effectiveness unless parents are also committed to their children’s education. Thus, the parental involvement movement seeks to engage parents as partners in learning activities, both on-site and at home. Research has shown that such engagement can produce higher levels of student performance, other things being equal. (Dodenhoff, p.10)

According to Dodenhoff (p.4), “this engagement can take a variety of forms, including:
• attending general school meetings;
• attending parent-teacher conferences;
• attending a school or class event;
• serving on a district governing board;
• participating in a parent-teacher association or school council;
• volunteering at school events or in the classroom;
• designating a specific time and space for study at home;
• helping the child with homework, or checking to make sure that homework has been completed;
• discussing school issues with the child; and
• reading to, or with, the child.

Those in favor of public school choice maintain that “by permitting parents to choose among a variety of public school options within the district, competition for students will ensue. This should improve school effectiveness and efficiency, and ultimately lead to better student outcomes.” (Dodenhoff, p.10)

Again, Dodenhoff (p. 3) defines “Public school choice” as a “variety of measures designed to put parents in the role of educational consumers, shopping for the best product for their child from among a variety of public schooling options. These options include:
• intra-district choice—a system allowing parents to choose among multiple schools in their home district;
• inter-district choice—a system allowing parents to choose among schools in multiple districts;
• magnet schools—public schools offering specialized courses or curricula, and often drawing on students from across multiple districts; and
• charter schools—public schools that are exempt from select state and local requirements that govern more traditional public schools.

So what does the WPRI analysis tell us? To begin with, they warn of the limits to these two theories of reform. They are quick to point out that that these reforms do not always work as advertised and that the “efficacy of the two reforms can sometimes break along lines of race, class, educational attainment, family composition, income, and ethnicity (or some mix of these, due to the often strong inter-correlations between them).” (Dodenhoff, p.6) The bottom line is that the greater the socioeconomic hardship, the less likely that parents are involved.

The total picture for relying on school choice and parental involvement as reform is bleak. Only

“an estimated 34 percent of MPS parents actively choose a school for their child(ren)… while fewer than half of parents who do choose make a choice from among two or more schools (as opposed to considering only one). Of those, about two-thirds consider academic/performance criteria in making their choice. By the time one arrives at this third cut at the data, only 10 percent of parents remain—that is, only 10 percent of parents consciously choose a school for their child, do so from at least two options, and consider academic/performance criteria in the process.”

The picture for parental involvement in the MPS is just as bleak where

“about one-third of parents are highly involved in their children’s education at the school site. With respect to at-home involvement, the figures vary between roughly 40 and 50 percent, depending on the student’s age. But parents who are at least moderately involved at home and highly involved at school are scarce indeed, constituting no more than one quarter of the parent population, and perhaps as little as 10 percent (again, depending on student age).” (Dodenhoff, p.10)

These estimates are considered high.

The Milwaukee Public Schools are broken and support a population facing conditions well below national averages. If parental involvement and school choice are not reliable reform options, then what next? Perhaps Michelle Rhee had the right idea…
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Dodenhoff, D. (2007). Fixing the milwaukee public schools: the limits of parent driven . Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Inc., 20(8), 1-16.