System-Wide School-to-Work Transition and Parental Choice
Milwaukee, WI
An American Youth Policy Forum Field Trip — October 19-20, 1995
This Forum field trip provided an opportunity to observe two approaches to school reform in an urban school district: system-wide school-to-work transition and parental choice. Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is the only urban school district in the country to initiate a School-to-Work process in kindergarten through 12th grade affecting all students. It is also one of few urban districts implementing a parental choice program.
System-Wide School-to-Work Transition
In Milwaukee, School-to-Work components and concepts are used as strategies for systemic education reform. According to The Milwaukee Plan, "School to Work brings the educational process in line with societal realities by ending purposeless separations among educational compartments, the workplace and the community, and by providing new guidance and methodologies for curriculum, teaching, delivery of instruction, assessment, and resource management."
Using this concept to drive education reform, a new integrated studies curriculum (ISC) has been adopted and implemented which requires the restructuring of school experiences so that all teachers work together to engage students in experiential learning to master academic skills in a real-life context. ISC implementation has required significant changes in the teaching-learning process to engage students in active, constructive and collaborative learning activities. According to School-to-Work Coordinator, Eve Hall, the school system has taken a very hard, take-it-or leave it citywide approach: "You can stand still and get buried by the glacier or you can learn to ski."
With a state school-to-work implementation grant, the Milwaukee Public School District has been able to support its citywide effort using a phase-in approach. [1] In 1994-95, MPS initiated School to Work with 10 schools (three elementary, four middle and three high schools). Schools volunteered to participate based on a consensus of the staff. Each school selected at least one STW implementor and a STW core team which was representative of the entire staff. The schools received financial support as well as opportunities for staff development, including a week-long summer institute where teams received orientation and continued planning activities; and workshops in the spring where schools shared information on their activities. In the second year of implementation (1995-96), another 34 schools were brought on line--21 elementary schools, two K-8 schools, six middle schools and five high schools. In addition to the staff development support, schools were provided buses for STW activities. They also received extra staff development funds to use for their own STW staff development needs. By the third year, all Milwaukee public schools will have participated in the process.
The goal is to create a consensus vision across faculties to change schools to offer all children experiences in the community and to get clarity about the goals of learning in the Milwaukee Public Schools. This vision includes ISC, staff development involving exchanges with employers and community agencies, and community partnerships that shape what students know and are able to do.
Tour participants had an opportunity to see the school-to-work concept in place at early childhood, middle and high schools and at work-based learning sites.
- The Starms Early Childhood Center serves children three to six years of age. The center is committed to providing a developmentally appropriate curriculum and an active learning environment. The integrated curriculum emphasizes the development of language, cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, self-care and socialization skills. Through hands-on activities, pupils acquire the necessary skills to become effective problem solvers/planners.
- Silver Spring School (K-6) has developed a program which introduces elementary pupils to the world of work. Classroom businesses serve as the entrepreneurial focal point to improve pupil learning, promote self-esteem, increase vocabulary and offer business-like opportunities.
- Roosevelt Creative Arts (6-8 grades) provides arts-based learning. Student work experiences are with arts organizations and art-related businesses. Partnerships include the Milwaukee Journal Sentimental whose music and dance critic works with students to help them think critically about the arts.
Other schools have developed new block schedules to support new career clusters and integration of vocational and academic studies and new school/business partnerships to support student mentoring, job shadowing, campus and business tours and career presentations.
Youth Apprenticeship
Statewide apprenticeship programs have been established in printing, finance, biotechnology, and auto manufacturing. The focus is on high wage, high skill, high demand occupations that address labor market needs. Youth apprenticeship differs from cooperative education in that students receive an industry-recognized certificate at the completion of the training and advanced standing in a registered apprenticeship program. Articulation with postsecondary institutions is an integral part of the program.
There are currently 136 MPS students involved in youth apprenticeships. Issues of concern regarding the youth apprenticeship programs deal with diversity (not enough females or minority males) and student transportation to the work site.
Youth Apprenticeship sites visited included the : Burton and Mayer Printers, The Printery; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; Masterlock Manufacturing; and Pulaski Automotive Company.
- Burton and Mayer Printers is a 57-year old family company. The printing industry of Wisconsin is very concerned about finding qualified employees and has made a commitment with the state to develop youth apprenticeship programs throughout the industry. Burton and Mayer took one student apprentice the first year from a pool of 11 students interviewed. Company managers feel they got the best student of the 60 to 80 students in the MPS printing program. The student has circulated through all departments of the firm as part of his apprenticeship training. The company recently took on another student. Both students are from families that are already in the trade. The company president, Tim Burton, is currently trying to recruit more businesses to the program.
Students enter the program as high school juniors. In the first year, the apprentice works 10 hours per week (three afternoons a week). The apprentice must master a list of activities at school or at the work place. The teacher and the work site mentor determine which activities are best dealt with at the school and the work site. In the second year of the program, the student is at the work site four days a week and at the technical school the one day. Pay increases for the youth apprentice based on work performance and grades.
Counseling and Career Guidance
Another element of the state school-to-work effort involves establishing a network of career centers throughout the state. The Milwaukee Career Center receives state STW funds to serve as a resource center for students, school personnel and parents. The Center provides information, guidance and counseling in career awareness, assessment exploration and selection. The Center is designed to inform, support and prepare Milwaukee youth for entry into the workforce.
There is no unified career curriculum within MPS. Career Center staff first meet with faculty and staff of the schools before arranging visits for students to the Center. Students receive an orientation by the Center staff within their classrooms. The Center can accommodate up to 30 students at a time. The target group is 8th and 9th graders from the 21 middle schools and 15 high schools in the area. Their goal is to serve 25-35 percent of visitors from non-MPS schools as well.
Students use individual computers to assess their job interests (e.g., working with people, things, ideas) and for an introduction to specific jobs based on their interests. Software also includes information on postsecondary schools and offerings in the student's area of interest. A variety of career information software is used including ACT Discovery, ETS and a state-developed career-information version. The Center is moving towards use of an interactive CD version of this software.
The Center has a $425,000 budget; most ($250,000) comes from the state Department of Labor, the remainder from a local tax levy, the STW grant, and from the Private Industry Council (JTPA, JOBS, Wagner Peysner funds). The Center also serves approximately 200 young women who are sanctioned under Learn Fare (for teen parents receiving welfare). The Center served 1,000 young people through JTPA summer jobs funding.
The staff of the Center voiced concern about continued state support of the Center absent federal funds. The state had originally committed $1.2 million to the Center but reduced that amount to $250,000.
Parental Choice Program
On Friday, October 20, we learned about Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program from a panel of community stakeholders--school administrators, parents, and community leaders, university researchers and program evaluators--and visited locally approved "choice" schools, including a sectarian Christian school and two non-sectarian, independent schools. The Choice program, in place since 1990, was designed to allow students from low-income backgrounds to attend private, nonsectarian schools in Milwaukee through the use of vouchers. More recently, the program was extended to include religious schools. On August 25, 1995 the Wisconsin State Supreme Court enjoined the use of state money for vouchers to religious schools. Almost, $1.4 million has been raised from foundations, businesses and individuals to keep nearly 2,300 students in religious schools while the case makes its way through the courts.
Past Superintendent of MPS and Distinguished Professor, School of Education, Marquette University, Howard Fuller, provided an historical perspective on the choice program. According to Fuller, the attempt to close North Division High School in 1976 (a predominantly African American, neighborhood school) led to a broader community discussion of the need to overhaul education of children of color in Milwaukee. (MPS is about 70 minority.) Annette Polly Williams, a local activist and state legislator, began to push for greater choice for African American parents. Fuller stressed that this was not an ideological, right wing plot to dismantle the public schools.
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The current system does not work for a significant number of our kids. We must break up the educational monopoly to create an environment for change where all children have the ability to learn through the widest range of options. Poor parents should have the same options as other parents. It's not about creating isolates of excellence, but a system of choice by giving poor parents power (associated with their ability to use resources). In Milwaukee, choice is tied into a local community agenda.
Witte cautioned that in the future, it is going to be difficult for independent schools to retain their non regulated status. Also, we will see the rise of for-profit private schools. In time, pressures will exist to open the program to non-poor kids.
Zakiya Courtney, Executive Director of Parents for School Choice, indicated that she had originally enrolled her children at Urban Day (an independent inner city private school) because of the school values, achievement track record and interest and involvement of parents. The issue of choice surfaced as a possibility of creating contacts between independent schools and the MPS. The teachers' union was influential in forcing language which essentially would create a program that was a dumping ground for students MPS wanted to get rid of. Polly Williams intervened to create a program that by-passed MPS and came directly from the state.
Courtney indicated that the choice schools are not skimming, but have a wide range of ability students. Last year, 870 students were enrolled in the program. This figure was below the cap because there were not enough open slots in the independent schools. To meet the demand, it was necessary to include the religious schools. (The current cap is 1.5 percent of MPS students.)
The new legislation allows for 100 percent choice students in a school. Each school gets state aide of $3,200 per student served and cannot charge parents any additional tuition.
According to Debra Kenner, Executive Director of the Greater Milwaukee Education Trust, the school choice issue has created a new dialogue among parents and all elements of the community regarding achievement goals for each child. There is greater pressure on teacher unions to change where they had no impetus to do so before. Parents in the public sector are given more options and are demanding excellence from their schools. The business sector is very involved, supporting the choice and STW movements in Milwaukee.
Schools of Choice
Trip participants visited three schools of choice: Holy Redeemer Academy, Bruce Guadalupe Community School, and Woodlands School. Each offered very different perspectives on the choice movement.
Holy Redeemer School. The school is six years old. It originated out of concerns within the community that too many children were falling through the cracks of the existing public school system. Experts from the community in education and social services developed the plan that eventfully produced the school. The school presently enrolls 200 students--almost all are African Americans. About half the students are affiliated with the Holy Redeemer Church of God and Christ; the other half represent other denominations or are non-denominational. The teachers are certified through MPS.
The school is sited in a renovated, converted warehouse. Field trip participants participated in the morning assembly of the school which featured spirited singing by students and staff and recognition of student, staff and community member achievement. In addition to the school, the church runs a credit union and has battered women and adult literacy programs. Its also runs an alternative school on a contract from MPS for 6-8th graders.
Bruce Guadeloupe has a long history in the community. It was started about 100 years ago as a bilingual independent school for the German community. As the community has changed, so have the racial and linguistic characteristics of the student body. It presently has an enrollment of 330 students, kindergarten through 8th grade. Hispanics represent 92 percent of the student body; and African Americans represent 2 percent; the majority of students qualify for free lunch; and 206 students are in the choice program. The staff is bilingual and multi-cultural. We met with parents, staff and students. All were very committed to the caring environment they find here. Parents stressed their need for this kind of choice and their determination to continue their children in this type of learning environment regardless of the outcome of the choice debate in Milwaukee.
Woodlands began as a lab school of Alverna College in 1954. It incorporated and moved to its present site seven years ago. The school is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of holistic instruction. Six parents are elected to the board of directors of 15 which sets policy for the school. Woodlands has 240 students, pre-K through 8th grade with a 1:12 adult/pupil ratio. It enrolls 48 public choice students and 50 PAVE students (funded by foundation scholarships). Students represent 36 zip codes in the city and the close-in suburbs. Some students are bussed on the MPS transportation system.
The tuition is $3250, though the real cost of attending is $4200. The school receives no Title 1 Funds. The average teacher salary is $22,000. There are computers in every class. Each kindergartner has an 8th grade buddy. Each teacher has a teacher assistant. The school offers French K-8 and music is an integral part of the curriculum.
The choice program helps support student diversity at the school. Whereas staff salaries are low, the school offers the opportunity to work as a professional, free of extreme regulation. Once a month, there is staff development day.
Conclusions
In Milwaukee, we found spirited discussion and around issues of urban education, access to and availability of high quality programming and a number of innovations. We were particular struck with the intensity of parental support of schools when parents are given the range of choices they desire.
Preliminary to the visit, we held conversations with the local teachers' union and received literature about the union's response to choice and its involvement in the STW strategy. Within the union, there appears to be a willingness to address many of the issues which brought about the choice movement. Some staff and schools are being given waivers and greater latitude from union contracts to structure schools and working conditions more in line with the needs of students and the demands of teaching and learning.
Although Milwaukee has made a broad commitment to restructure schools within a STW framework, only time will tell whether this approach brings fundamental changes to schools, alters the relationship of schools to communities and the employers, and produces youth who are ready to access high skill, high wage occupations. This broad approach, inclusive of all schools and all students, may be a model for bringing STW to scale. In more intensive work-based areas such as youth apprenticeship, there appears to be much work to do to achieve the hoped for level of scale.
Contact Information
Zakiya Courtney
Parents for School Choice
2541 N. 46th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53210
414/873-8395
Fax: 414/873-0669
or 256-1224
Rev. Daniels
Pastor, Holy Redeemer Church
Gerald Fair
Principal, Holy Redeemer Academy
4858 N. 35th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53209
414/466-1800 (church)
414/466-9263 (academy)
Fax: 414/466-9294
Howard Fuller
Distinguished Professor of Education
Institute for the Transformation of Learning
Marquette University
3290 N. 44th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53216
414/288-5775
Fax: 414/288-3945
Eve Hall
Director, School-to-Work Program
Milwaukee Public Schools
P.O. Box 2181
Milwaukee, WI 53201
414/ 475-8004 or 475-8187
Fax: 414/475-8585
Debra Kenner
Executive Director
Greater Milwaukee Education Trust
756 N. Milwaukee Street
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414/287-4145
Fax: 414/287-4174
William J. Malone
Director
Milwaukee Career Center
219 North Milwaukee St.
Milwaukee, WI 53202-3109
414/ 226-2440
Fax: 414/ 226-0318
Allan Nuhlicek
Principal
Bruce-Guadalupe School
1028 S. 9th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414/384-3100
Walter Sava
Executive Director
United Community Center
1028 South 9th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414/384-3100
Susan Wing
Principal
Woodlands School
1669 S. 5th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414/642-1600
Fax: 414/643-4830
John Witte
Department of Political Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI 53706
608/263-2029/263-2414
Fax: 608.265-2663
[1] 86 percent of school districts in Wisconsin are involved in the state's STW initiative and receive grants.
This information is from an American Youth Policy Forum field trip to Milwaukee, WI held from October 19-20, 1995. Reported by Glenda Partee.