MPS residency rule costs Custer HS popular teacher

[Empidonax]

Originally Posted by Nuclear_Art

I'd say from my experience that more people will drop a class due to an incompetent instructor than a difficult teacher and that is at a UW system school. Of course I was in engineering so students would rather have a more demanding prof.

In the case of engineering, sciences, and math, I think you're generally right, though the principle probably applies more to upper-level classes. In the case of intro courses in these fields, many students still "shop around" for "easier" profs, though a lot of these students wind up realizing that they'd do much better (intellectually and academically) in other fields. Often, the "weeding-out" process all across the board helps with these decisions....

The same scenario applies to the other fields, too--students taking required or gen ed courses in languages, writing, etc. often shop around in order to maximize grades and minimize workload, but by the time they find their niche at the upper level, the students tend to seek somewhat more demanding courses. (Not always, though. And the demanding courses still have to fit a student's comfort zone; an excellent English lit major may not be willing or able to handle the strange rigors of an English linguistics course, and vice versa.)

Actually students decide with the permission of their parents. Choice programs for example require parental permission.

That's good to know. But still, considering how little involvement many parents seem to have in their kids' lives and schooling, and considering how zealously over-involved other parents may get, I would still tread with caution..... But at least the option seems to promote parent/child discussion regarding education, which is a very good (and perhaps relatively rare) thing.

[Empidonax]

Very good follow-ups here from EnjoyEP and Milwaukee Ronnie. I agree that the city's middle class is slipping away, and that the lower and higher status/income ends of the class structure is polarizing. It does indeed seem that the Latino middle class is growing, and the comments on the African American middle class seem on target. It seems that Brown Deer and a handful of Milwaukee neighborhoods have become magnets for the metro's African American middle class, but the overall percentage of people compared to the city and metro population is probably still very small.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by EnjoyEP

Here is an interesting article from today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that I thought could spark some comments or debate:

JS Online: Right ZIP code, wrong city: Popular MPS science teacher loses job

Essentially, Custer High School is losing a popular science teacher of six years because they have found out that he lives in Brown Deer, not Milwaukee (he lives in the 53223 zip code which covers part of Milwaukee as well as Brown Deer and uses a Milwaukee mailing address).

From the sounds of the story, it appears he eventually learned while working at Custer that he knew he was in violation of the residency rule, but did a "no ask, no tell" type thing.

I would be curious to hear others' thoughts on this - is the residency rule for MPS teachers a good thing or a bad thing? I can see arguments both ways, although lean a hare more towards against the residency rule. But again, I can see things both ways. Anyone with thoughts?

The residency rule is stupid. If MPS wants good teacher, get rid of the residency rule.

[huggybear28]

I find it to be quite tragic that Milwaukee has to add on residency restrictions to keep many middle class citizens in the city. For the five years I lived in Milwaukee I did a years work with the school district. Many times I would get into discussion with them about families, then where they sent their kids to school. A large majority of them sent their kids to suburban schools and a few of them sent them to private schools. I am sure many teachers are already turned off when applying for teaching in the district as Milwaukee does not have the best reputation and the residency requirement only makes it less desirable. In addition I know there is another thread out there arguing about the school choice system but I for one am arguing against it. The main reason the middle class is gone in Milwaukee is schools. When parents reside in central city school districts many depend on private schools to educate their kids as they want their kids in a higher income academically strong school. When the state opened up the private schools in Milwaukee to anyone through school choice the amount of struggling poor students greatly increased. Since a majority of public and private schools in Milwaukee now have many struggling poorer students many middle class parents do not want their kids in these environments. So the middle class moves out to get their kids into better preforming suburban schools. The middle and upper class used the private schools as a barrier where they could get their kids a good education with students of the same income yet live in Milwaukee. Now since this barrier is gone the middle class is only more encouraged to move out. Would there be an exodus of teachers to the suburbs if this requirement was dropped? Probably so, but with the requirement they are also losing many good teachers who do not apply as they do not want to live in Milwaukee. Either way, the city loses out.

[ShanMan72]

It's a dumb law that only two or three other large metropolitan cities follow. They need to repeal it.