Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A well-known school for at-risk girls likely will not have a contract with Milwaukee Public Schools next year, the School Board’s reform committee decided Tuesday night.

BY ALAN J. BORSUK
A federal judge has ruled full-force in favor of potentially historic changes that would require Milwaukee Public Schools to provide more services sooner to thousands of struggling students.

BY ALAN J. BORSUK
10th-grade performance 'very inadequate,' MPS chief says
The achievement gaps that split Wisconsin's school world so deeply can be seen in sharp focus in the annual wave of test data for public school students released today by the state Department of Public Instruction.

BY ALAN J. BORSUK
Graduation rates higher among voucher students
A second round of results comparing high school graduation figures for Milwaukee Public Schools and a group of private schools in the city's publicly funded voucher program has reached the same conclusion as a report issued in January: Students who attend voucher schools are more likely to graduate than those who attend MPS.

BY AMY HETZNER
The Wisconsin Supreme Court declined Wednesday to consider an appeal of a court decision that would force the Oconomowoc Area School District to pay the educational costs of a disabled man placed in a residential treatment center within its boundaries.

Lawyer created school as pathway to college
At 27, Deanna Singh is determined to change the dismal statistic that only 5% of African-American adults in Milwaukee have a four-year college degree. So determined that she has launched her own charter school, where her inaugural sixth-grade students already identify their class by the year they will graduate from college.

Black children and yellow school buses long have been inextricably linked in the history of education in America. It started with the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that allowed for school desegregation in cities like Milwaukee. That led to widespread busing movements that allowed black students to attend classes outside their neighborhoods at predominantly white schools.

BY ALAN J. BORSUK
Wisconsin native says today's schools aren't engaging
And she remembers the teacher who brushed off her questions and turned her off to the class he was teaching - the one who she felt didn't value her.

BY DANI MCCLAIN
They say fixation on tests hurts kids
There's more to Milwaukee Public Schools than state test scores and dropout rates, but the realities of life in the classroom rarely bubble up to top district officials.

BY ALAN J. BORSUK
Enrollment dips below 80,000 for 1st time in decades
At the same time, participation in the private school voucher program may exceed 20,000 next year, MPS officials projected.

BY DANI MCCLAIN
Special programs help students stay on track
This fall, the high school will launch a new program aimed at helping its first-year students - who come from dozens of feeder schools around the city - identify with their new school and get on the college prep path.

BY ALAN J. BORSUK
Program will rate school in reading, math and science
Milwaukee was named Thursday as one of seven urban school districts that will join the testing program of the National Assessment of Education Progress. NAEP is the closest thing to a nationwide testing program at levels below college admission tests.

BY PATRICK MARLEY AND STACY FORSTER
Legislation caps enrollment, requires program audit
The new law guarantees the online schools can open this fall. Their future was in doubt after an appeals court ruled in December that one school - the Wisconsin Virtual Academy run by the Northern Ozaukee School District - did not qualify for state aid of $5,845 per student.

COLUMNIST EUGENE KANE
It was a bold headline, befitting the seriousness of the problem: "State black 8th-graders rank worst In nation in writing."  And it was pretty damning stuff when you consider we're talking about 14-year-old kids here.

BY DANI MCCLAIN
State education chief offers support at forum
Milwaukee Public Schools' efforts to shed its status as a "district identified for improvement" are locally controlled but closely watched by officials in Madison, the state's education chief told a crowd of around 100 people this week.