It’s amazing what several hundred thousand a million dollars will buy you these days. Get ready for an opinion from McKinsey & Co. that says Milwaukee Public Schools suck. (And I’ve been telling you that for free!)

Between extremely poor results with the students, wasteful spending, and massive property tax increases, MPS has got to be one of the worst school districts in America. But they apparently need more money so that someone can tell them what’s obvious to all of us. (The money is being donated, so technically it’s not taxpayer money, but it’s wasteful nonetheless.)

Consultants McKinsey & Co. have been contracted to do a review of the school system before any radical changes are made. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett hopes the consultants say that the district needs more money so he can get the state to give it some. But as I’ve said over and over, the money isn’t the problem. The school district itself is.

Here’s the best part of the whole consulting gig: $350,000 of seed money was donated by the Helen Bader Foundation to fund the project, and seven other foundations are also donating money. If each of those give only $50,000 each, we’re talking a total tab of $700,000 for these consultants to tell MPS that the school district sucks. Did I happen to mention I would tell them that for free?

5 Comments

  1. Lee D 11/25/2008 at 2:59 pm - Reply

    That’s the problem, Tracy. They won’t listen to you unless they’re paying for it.

  2. Tracy Coenen 11/25/2008 at 3:36 pm - Reply

    Well geez. If that’s the case, I think a tiny sum such as $250,000 would do the trick for me.

  3. Big 4 Life 11/30/2008 at 10:14 am - Reply

    Excellent post — I am glad someone is writing about the fact that instead of throwing money into things like, I don’t know, a child’s education – it is being spent on high end consultants when as you say people are ready to give the advice for free šŸ™‚

  4. Adrienne 12/01/2008 at 1:51 pm - Reply

    As a product of the Milwaukee Public School system (thankfully my own child is in the San Francisco Public School system!), I can say this is spot on.

    Just goes to prove that things don’t change – I was stuck there in the 80s and they funneled most of the money out to the suburbs under their faulty “diversity” scheme; basically they would bus inner city kids out to suburban schools and bus in kids from those suburban schools to experience the joys of inner city public school. Who knows what this was supposed to achieve. Not sure the suburban schools even got a fair deal.

    My aunt, who was an MPS art teacher, went from having a full classroom to having a cart that she’d have to drag around from class to class. She finally abandoned MPS and went to find a new calling after being fed up year after year by MPS’s views towards teaching staff and students.

    It’s all one big scandalous money machine.

    I will also happily tell them for free that they suck. As I’m sure would most of the MPS alumni. Epic failure.

  5. […] what’s the bottom line? MPS still sucks, but they’re spending a million dollars to have consultants tell them […]

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