OntheWilderSide

from a Milwaukee Green Party press release posted at Green Party Watch

Milwaukee Green Party Protests Mayor Take Over of School Board
December 16th, 2009

Madison – The Milwaukee Green Party will hold a press conference on Wednesday, December 16, 2009, to announce their opposition to Mayoral Takeover at the capitol. The press conference is to begin at 11:00 am on the steps facing State Street and is scheduled to coincide with the Special Session and introduction of legislative bills concerned with education reform in the city of Milwaukee.

Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2009
Time: 11:00 am
Place: State Capitol, State Street steps

Mayoral control of the public school system as opposed to elected and accountable school board management of the public school system in Milwaukee, or any other school system whether Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, Los Angeles or in any other school district in the state of Wisconsin or states abroad for that matter, infringes on shared governance and subverts democracy. It robs the citizens of the right to their vote for their representatives and to participate meaningfully in decision-making regarding education at the primary, middle, and secondary levels of our PK-12 public education system. The public school system and an elected and representative school board, as originally conceived by Horace Mann, the first superintendent of the public schools of the state of Massachusetts, was intended to reflect the community standards for access, equity and excellence in education. Drawing on the human resources of the community, the administration of the public school system, the staff, teachers, students and the public school edifice itself, were intentionally positioned with the express intent to enfranchise local citizens, to empower parents, friends of the school, and to cultivate civic leaders. It was not, as is the case with Mayoral control, to disenfranchise those same peoples from the community where their children attend the school.

Therefore, be it resolved that the Green Party of the state of Wisconsin opposes Mayoral takeovers, and subsequent dismantling of publicly elected school boards to be replaced by unelected advisory boards, subservient to the Mayor and/or private sector, educational maintenance organizations (EMO’s), extraneous to the community at large. We maintain that public education must be publicly owned, funded, and managed for the participation and benefit of all.

A previous anti-Mayoral Control action endorsed by the Greater Milwaukee Green Party was announced: here.

Filed under: 3rd party, Education, Green Party, News, politics, Press Release, progressive politics, third party, US Politics Tagged: | Green Party, Mayoral Control, Mayoral Takeover, Milwaukee Green Party, public school, Winsconsin Green Party