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In a new attack on public education, the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) district in Wisconsin is considering closing 13 school buildings as part of its long-term facilities master plan. The 13 buildings are located in a three-square-mile area of ​​the city’s poorest neighborhoods, and six of the buildings are in the city’s poorest ZIP code.

While avoiding any public comment on the school closure plan, the operation is largely being overseen by Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson and the Democrat-controlled Common Council. At a news conference in June, Johnson warned of “deep problems” in the state’s largest school district, saying they “require solutions and they require quick solutions.”

The mayor said he was not interested in taking over the school district and had confidence in the current school superintendent and board of education officials to address the financial crisis.

Democrats, who control the governorship and one of the two chambers of the state legislature, have also reduced state aid to Milwaukee schools by $81 million in 2024-25. Additionally, the Biden-Harris administration has allowed federal COVID school funding to expire. Wisconsin received $2.4 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, funding.

The Milwaukee School District used three rounds of ESSER funding, totaling $786.42 million, to hire staff, purchase technology and textbooks, and improve air quality in classrooms. After funding ran out, the district laid off nearly 300 school workers.

The MPS announcement is part of a nationwide attack on public education. Most recently, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) stated that it will close between 17 and 21 elementary schools next year, leading to the layoffs of hundreds of teachers and staff. In Chicago, more than 100 schools are in danger of extinction. In an email sent by Chicago Teachers Union leaders to all union members on September 13, they stated: “Over 100 schools are being analyzed for possible cuts, closures or consolidations.”

Leaders of the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and their state and local affiliates, aligned with the Democratic Party, have been complicit in school closures. No strikes, walkouts or protests have been called, and the history of school closures, especially in Chicago, where the Democratic Party government implemented the closure of 50 schools after the betrayal of the CTU in the 2012 teachers strike, serves as a Serious lesson for educators. everywhere. The fight against school closures must be undertaken by educators who form grassroots committees to wage a fight independently of union bureaucracies.

The district hired Perkins Eastman, a New York-based architecture, urban design and strategic planning firm, to craft its school merger and closure plan.

Last week, the district held a “town hall” session chaired by school officials and representatives from Perkins Eastman. The event was open to the public and attended by parents and teachers. The company’s findings and recommendations were presented from a set of 56 slides, bearing the MPS and Perkins Eastman logos.

The company used a “rating tree” strategy to apply one of seven recommendations to each building. The “close or merge” recommendation applied to buildings with a utilization rate of less than 50 percent, with steady or declining enrollment and that were within one mile of another building. Presumably, redirecting students to a nearby school with capacity could allow for the closure of a building and achieve associated cost savings.