Milwaukee Public Schools plans to reallocate money for Milwaukee Education Partnership to Black teacher recruitment

After ending its decade-long contract with Milwaukee Education Partnership last month, the Milwaukee Public School board’s finance committee is recommending reallocating $75,000 to recruit Black teachers.

The Committee on Accountability, Finance and Personnel approved moving the money – allocated in the 2023-24 budget for the Milwaukee Education Partnership – to Superintendent Keith Posley and the human resources office during a Tuesday meeting.

Posley and Adria Maddalein, the district’s chief human resources officer, said the money would be used to recruit staff from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs.

“We currently do engage with some recruitment activities with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This funding will allow us to really strengthen that by allowing us to touch more colleges and universities,” Maddalein said. “This funding will allow us to touch base with internal staff and alumni, that will allow us to help with recruitment initiatives and get our foot in the door.”

The full MPS Board of School Directors will vote on the proposal on Thursday.

Working with HBCUs is not new for MPS. The district holds an HBCU week annually, connecting students and parents with the schools.

MPS also arranges tours of HBCUs throughout the year. There are 107 colleges in the United States that are identified by the U.S. Department of Education as Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Most of the schools are located on the East Coast and the South.

Nearly 50 percent of the district’s 67,495 students are Black, according to the latest school report card.

Questions about financial transparency raised

On Nov. 15, Posley announced the district was ending its affiliation with the partnership and Executive Director Gerard Randall, after reporting by WPR and Wisconsin Watch brought the questionable history of his nonprofit to light.

Randall received nearly $1.3 million in no-bid contracts from MPS over the last decade.

Walter Lanier, president and CEO of the African American Leadership Alliance Milwaukee, said he thinks using the money Randall would have been paid this year to engage with HBCUs is a good idea. Lanier, who has an undergraduate degree from UW-Milwaukee and a law degree from the University of Michigan, said he believes he would have benefited from a HBCU.

“African American students would benefit from going and having that experience,” Lanier said. “Not only the excellence in education, but also, the immersion into Black culture.”

But Lanier said even if MPS is reallocating money in a positive way, the district should be open to critique and clear transparency.

“I think one of the important things when dealing with a larger bureaucracy is (the) challenges are in the details, and so what does it mean to do that in a manner that it achieves the articulated goal?” Lanier said.

Bevery Williams, a community activist who heads the group Community Takeover Voices of Milwaukee’s Children, said she has serious concerns over the $75,000 going back to MPS administration.

“This money is now available because MPS ended its partnership with Gerard Randall after giving away $1.3 million over 10 years without oversight,” Williams said. “We demand an investigation, or a resolution to investigate that $1.3 million before dispersing that $75,000 to what might become an unmonitored slush fund for MPS administraton. MPS has spent thousands of dollars recruiting teachers across the world. There are other needs in MPS that can be addressed with these funds.”

Posley did not respond to Williams’ comments. He said the results of the HBCU efforts should be known by April or May.

No-bid contract approved for college tours

The committee also approved three no-bid contracts related to introducing students to colleges.

Atlanta-based College Campus Tours LLC will be paid a total of $318,767 to take 200 students and about 20 staff members on tours.

The tours will be held in February, April and June and go to the North Carolina Region, Mid-Atlantic Region, and Alabama and Georgia. Many of the schools students visit will be HBCUs.

This is not the first time MPS has contracted with College Campus Tours.

District guidelines allow officials to waive competitive bidding for contracts under $5,000, contracts that provide a “one-of-a-kind” service or those needed for continuity that also demonstrate “quantifiable or qualitative savings.”