MPS’ Defective Board

Seriously… the members of the MPS school board look like a bunch of buffoons. 

The Milwaukee School Board won’t explore plans to dissolve the district but will instead push forward with an examination of the district’s gloomy financial picture.

That was the message of a 7-1 vote Thursday in which the board told Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William Andrekopoulos to develop financial projections for what the schools will face over the next three years.

But board member Terry Falk, who made the proposal and who chairs the budget committee, offered this summary of what he thinks the projections will show:

“I’m saying flat out that unless we change the (state) funding formula, we will be broke in about three years,” Falk said. “In about three years, the whole thing collapses.”

If Falk already knows the answer, then why spend the time and money of the projections? 

The whole board is running around pointing fingers at everyone else instead of offering solutions.  Why are these folks elected if all they can do is sit on their hands and complain? 

This story does a great job of showing just how inept the school board is.  In the very same story that they give dire predictions of the financial collapse of the entire district, they pass spending increases for things that have absolutely nothing to do with educating kids:

In other action, the board voted 7-2 to offer benefits such as health insurance to domestic partners of nonunionized MPS employees and put the board on record in favor of doing that for all employees.

[...]

Without discussion, the board also approved providing about $450,000 over the next three years toward bringing to MPS teachers involved in Teach for America, an organization that recruits college graduates to teach for at least two years in high-needs school districts.

They claim that the domestic partner benefits are “revenue neutral.”  That’s not true unless nobody takes advantage of them.  You can’t add benefits for additional people for nothing. 

If Milwaukee had any sense, they’d throw the entire school board out of office and get people in there who are willing to do the job responsibly.