By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

MILWAUKEE  –  If the Green Bay Packers finished 2-14 for several years in a row, the people of Wisconsin would undoubtedly welcome news of large-scale roster changes.

Milwaukee Public Schools have been registering losing numbers in terms of graduation and student test scores for years. Now we hear that roughly 719 staffers (including 503 teachers and 31 administrators) are retiring at the end of the current school year, which for some is undoubtedly encouraging news.

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Yet Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, somehow considers the turnover a disaster for the district.

Peterson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the retirements represent, as the newspaper put it, “a significant loss to the quality of education in Milwaukee.”

Just how much is there to lose?

The graduation rate in the school district was a dismal 62.8 percent in 2011. And last year state testing revealed that 85 percent of students in the district are below proficiency in reading while 80 percent are below proficiency in math.

Obviously not all of the academic failure is the fault of the teachers. MPS is an urban district that serves a high percentage of students from economically disadvantaged families. Traditionally children from lower-income backgrounds lag behind academically.

On the other hand, the hundreds of new teachers who will start working in the district next fall certainly can’t do much worse than their predecessors. Perhaps an infusion of fresh blood will have a positive impact on the district.

It’s not as if younger teachers have had much of a chance to make a difference in Milwaukee. The district has experienced hundreds of layoffs in recent years, and because of the MTEA’s insistence on layoffs based on seniority rather than skill, a lot of fresh talent has been forced to hit the road.

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Let’s not forget about Megan Sampson, who in 2011 was named the Outstanding First Year Teacher by the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English. By the end of that school year she was out of a job, due to the fact that MTEA refused to agree to a health insurance change that would have saved the school district millions of dollars.

Sampson complained to the media that the union did not keep her and her colleagues informed about the insurance issue, or the fact that layoffs were possible.

Old, angry or both?

Why is the mass retirement happening at MPS and how much of a difference will it make?

District officials say the exodus has been expected for several years because so many teachers are getting old.

“The hiring is largely the result of the last year of a three-year wave of retirements sparked in part by the aging of the baby boom generation, which is represented significantly in the Milwaukee Public Schools workforce,” wrote Tony Tagliavia, MPS spokesman, in a district press release.

Peterson places the blame on Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker’s landmark legislation that limited collective bargaining privileges for public sector unions, including teachers unions. With their traditional world turned upside down, many teachers decided to get while the getting was good, Peterson said.

“There’s a great deal of uncertainty about the future (because of Act 10) and it isn’t surprising that a lot of people are retiring before they want to stop teaching,” Peterson told the Journal Sentinel.

“Because of Act 10, because of us not being able to negotiate contacts in any way like the past, this is definitely one of the fallouts,” Peterson told WISN.com.

One main concern for older teachers is the changing standard for earning retiree health coverage, according to Peterson.

“Currently, in order to get health insurance post-retirement you have to have accumulated 70 percent of your sick days and saved those and not used them, and the change is going to make that 90 percent,” Peterson told WUWM public radio. “Similarly there are changes in age eligibility. So in the past it was 55 years with 30 years of service, but now it’s going to go up to 60 years.”

Aggressive recruiting

Regardless of the reason for the mass departure, the fact is that it’s happening and new teachers must be hired. Will MPS attract the high-caliber candidates it hopes to find?

District officials think so for several different reasons.

They point out that MPS will raise its starting teacher salary from $37,721 to $41,000 per year, and that the school board has relaxed the amount of time that new teachers have to establish residency in the district.

“With the strong academic reforms we’ve put in place and our commitment to excellence, we are dedicated to being the employer of choice for the best and brightest educators and support staff for our students,” MPS Superintendent Gregory Thornton was quoted as saying.

Officials have been aggressively seeking new teachers over the past few months, with five highly publicized recruiting events taking place.

While many positions still remain unfilled, Tagliavia said the process has been encouraging.

“We have had five formal recruitment events in Milwaukee, including one for prospective principals, three focusing on specific types of teachers and one for all teachers/paraprofessionals,” Tagliavia said.

“We continue to recruit using various platforms and we continue to hold events in other parts of the country where we anticipate a strong ability to hire highly-qualified staff.

“We set out to find the best and brightest educators and support staff for the children of Milwaukee. We’re pleased with volume of qualified candidates we’ve seen so far.”

Peterson is far more cynical, of course. Apparently he can’t imagine any generation of teachers being as gifted or dedicated as his generation.

“I’m hopeful we will be able to recruit high quality teachers, but I am skeptical we will have as much success as some people in the administration believe,” Peterson told the Business Journal.

Could this guy get any gloomier? Does he really believe the school district with wither away and die without the old-timers hanging around?

Change is part of life. A new era is about to begin for Milwaukee Public Schools. Out with the old, in with the new, and may the new batch of teachers bring a fresh batch of optimism for the long-suffering students of the district.