Back in September, after Jesse Jackson Jr. spoke at our DFER launch inWashington, I blogged about a situation in my old neighborhood involving what was arguably one of the worst public elementary schools America had ever seen. Palmer Elementary School, which was a couple of blocks away from my home on Milwaukee’s north side was so bad it made you ache inside watching those poor kids march into such an educational wasteland every day. Our liberal guilt was painful when we opted against sacrificing our son to the public education Gods (we decided to send him to a kick-ass public magnet school for white kids a few blocks west) and we agonized about how we could have helped that damn school.
My family and I were back in Milwaukee over the weekend for a wedding and we stopped by to see the old neighborhood. We saw that the school had changed its name (see picture above) and was newly committed to math (even if the administrators hadn’t mastered the less than/greater than thing.)
The building looked better, to be honest. But it seems the place is still a cesspool. According to the most recent test scores on file with the Milwaukee Public Schools, the Worst School Ever is still pretty awful.
In third grade reading, only 29% of the kids at The Worst School Ever were considered proficient. The state average was 80%. In math, only 15% were considered proficient. The state average was 73%.
There were some bright(er) spots that might please the multiple measures crowd, like the 44% of fourth grade kids who passed the social studies test.
Sadly, though, a decade later we’re still looking at The Worst School Ever.
Shouldn’t we be talking about the best use of public resources in cases like this? Clearly there are better uses for this building that will benefit children, no?