MacIver News Service | January 18, 2011
[Milwaukee, Wisc…] Vacant school buildings have plagued Milwaukee for years, lying dormant in the face of declining enrollment and bureaucratic strife. These 27 institutions have become a no-mans land for the city, devoid of students while other facilities deal with capital problems. It’s become one of Wisconsin’s most embarrassing educational problems –but 2011 may be the year that this lose-lose situation is finally cleared up.
State Senator Alberta Darling and Common Council President Willie Hines have joined forces to make the revitalization of these schools a priority in Milwaukee. A conservatively estimated $34.7 million in real estate is going unused every day. This year, the pair has decided that they’ve had enough of the real estate problem.
“We must focus on educating children and not on whose name is on the front of the building,” said Senator Darling, who is proposing significant legislation at the state level to address the problem. “All of us owe it to the taxpayers to ensure that these schools are used to provide quality education for children.”
These vacancies have cropped up thanks to declining enrollment rates in the city. However, Milwaukee Board of School Directors’ control has kept these empty buildings from being sold or filled.
“For several years, the City of Milwaukee has experienced an ironic disconnect between the overabundance of empty school facilities and the lack of outstanding educational options for students and families,” said Hines. “These facilities must be available for high-performing schools, and the City of Milwaukee is in a position to ensure they are put to use in the best manner possible.”
This Board is hamstringing the city by placing strict restrictions on the sale of these buildings – choosing to let them depreciate and hang on the city’s budget like an albatross rather than sell them to other interested educators. As a result, the Board can choose not to sell or lease the properties to any organization that they may see as a threat to traditional public schools. As a result, private schools, charter schools, and other institutions have been frozen out in favor of Milwaukee Public Schools’ monopolistic practices.
Their techniques have worked in keeping students out of their vacated classrooms. In the past decade, only one former MPS building has been successfully sold.
Each year, these schools cost over $1 million to maintain, despite serving exactly zero students per year. Detractors argue that in freezing out alternative schooling options – especially private schools that could potentially attract students using the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program –MPS is openly spiting their own students. The district is eating potential funds in order keep other schools out.
Milwaukee Superintendent Gregory Thornton made it clear that filling or selling these defunct schools was a priority when he first came to town this summer.
However, he was also cautious not to promise dramatic change that would rile Milwaukee Board Members. Specifically, Thornton has advocated the expansion of charter schools within MPS to fill these darkened classrooms. However, that’s a tall order, especially if these charter operations are limited to MPS’s umbrella –a stingy charter authorizer.
Darling and Hines believe major reform is needed to efficiently and successfully get students back in these schools. Limiting the potential buyers of these properties essentially puts locks on their doors, they argue. Even Thornton’s idea of bringing in MPS-sponsored charters is an extremely small-scale solution for a large-scale problem; under the current system, this would only place one or two new schools in MPS owned vacant buildings per year at best. Add in a slow-moving approval process, a bureaucracy that is unwilling to cede ground to national charter groups, and a general distaste for charter schools in MPS and Darling says it is clear that little change would take place, even under Thornton’s progressive outline.
The demand for these buildings exists; schools such as Lighthouse Academy and St. Marcus Lutheran have been vocal in their interest to move into MPS’s former territories. However, as long as MPS is given the opportunity to reject applications from private schools and state law restricts the number of authorizers for charter schools, they are likely to remain vacant. In an area in need of quality educational institutions, this is unacceptable according to Hines and Darling.
The bipartisan duo argue that Milwaukee Public Schools are freezing out their communities by stifling the growth of educational options within the city. They note that not only are they keeping new schools from moving in; they are also hurting their own bottom line in failing to sell off assets that are costing the district millions of dollars in upkeep and lost revenue.
Hines and Darling argue that in an attempt to ensure that private schools and charter schools can’t gain any traction, MPS is shooting itself in the foot –and taking funding away from their students.
MacIver News Service’s Bill Osmulski has more in this video report, including reaction from a member of the MPS Board:
