MILWAUKEE – Two Wisconsin state lawmakers say legal action may be necessary to force the implementation of the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program (OSPP) for troubled schools in Milwaukee.

Last year lawmakers created the program, giving the Milwaukee County Executive the right to identify and assume control over as many as three failing schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools district each year.

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There are plenty to choose from. Almost 28,000 children attend MPS schools that have been identified by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as failing to meet expectations.

But thus far the people who are supposed to be implementing the OSPP – Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and Mequon-Thiensville Superintendent Demond Means – have failed to take decisive action.

They put forth a proposal for the structure of the program, with a heavy emphasis on compromise – allowing MPS to maintain some control over the failing schools, allowing the district to still receive state funding for those schools, and allowing current teachers to keep their jobs, salaries and benefits.

Despite that gentle approach, last week MPS officials announced they had rejected the plan, leaving the situation unsettled. MPS and teachers union officials have long objected to the program, calling it a state takeover of the schools.

But the fact is that Abele and Means reportedly have the legal power to move forward and implement the program, with or without the consent of MPS leaders.

“If the MPS board doesn’t join the program, Means could have an outside group operate the schools. MPS would receive no funding for students in those schools,” Fox6Now reported.

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The two state lawmakers who sponsored the legislation creating the OSPP – State Sen. Alberta Darling and State Rep. Dale Kooyenga – hinted last week that action may be taken to move the program forward, despite the continued objections of MPS officials.

“Kooyenga said the legislation ‘could not have been more flexible’ in its direction to improve failing schools,” MacIverInstitute.com reported. “He said that the parties involved won’t be allowed to simply disregard the law. Those comments follow those of Darling, who said that a state lawsuit against Abele and Means could be possible for failing to comply to law.”

Abele and Means have clearly bent over backward to try to please MPS officials and gain their endorsement of the OSPP.

In May, Abele and Means were supposed to identify the first school to be part of the program, based on the timeline they announced.  But that never happened because MPS officials had not agreed to the basic plan for the program.

“Our hope is to pick the school with MPS,” Abele told Fox6Now.com last month. “That’s something MPS had an interest in early on.”

The plan put forward by Abele and Means was apparently mushy to begin with, according to one journalist who has been following the situation.

“Abele and Means proposed that they sort of would and sort of wouldn’t take over some MPS schools,” wrote Alan Borsuk, an education columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I admit I have never quite figured out how this would work. But it certainly wasn’t what key backers of the OSPP law, state Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) and state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), originally envisioned.”

Darling and Kooyenga were clearly angered by MPS’ rejection of the program plan.

“Number one, there’s a law they have to comply with,” Darling told MacIverInstitute.com. “We’re not going to repeal the law, so they have to work within the framework of the law.

“We’re not going to desert those kids who are in those failing schools, and they’ve been left there over and over again. It’s time they address these situations. MPS is really worried about their ‘market share’…they want to keep [children] in the system so that they can afford their pensions and other benefits that are on the table.”

Kooyenga told MacIverInstitute.com that MPS’ rejection of the OSPP plan demonstrated four things.

“Number one, that there’s no sense of urgency to take action,” Kooyenga said. “That’s obvious by trying delays for another year. Number two is that the status quo is acceptable. And number three is the parties involved are more concerned about the system than the kids. There’s constant talk about what will you do to, like, keep the system the way it is, and that’s opposed to talking about the children. And fourth, there’s this reckless disregard for state and federal law.”