New Education Initiative Launches In Milwaukee

A new education initiative called M-Cubed was officially launched Wednesday in Milwaukee. It’s a partnership between Milwaukee Public Schools, Milwaukee Area Technical College and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Vicki Martin, president of Milwaukee Area Technical College, said part of the initiative is to make sure the three entities are teaching difficult subjects the same way.

“Students have a hard time with math,” she said. “With our students, as well, they hold off ’til the last semester because they want to avoid it at all costs. So what we realized is that we could together start working on a curriculum early to make sure that we are all aligned.”

Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent, Darienne Driver, said the path to college starts in high school.

“Everybody’s who’s in the college readiness game knows how important 9th grade is,” Driver said. “But again, this is not work that we can figure out by ourselves. We have to have partners that are helping us get our students over those different benchmarks, getting them to the finish line.”

Driver says 33 percent of high school freshmen in Milwaukee do not make it to the 10th grade.

Other goals of the M-Cubed initiative are increasing college readiness, educating families about the importance of post-secondary education and increasing the expectation of learning after high school.