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A Milwaukee charter school on probation for poor academic probation since 2008 is expected to be closed by the city this fall. City officials say test scores at the Academy of Learning and Leadership, a North Side school attended by about 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, have only gotten worse in recent months and fall well below those at similar MPS schools.

Charter schools were authorized by the state as alternatives to traditional public schools, in hopes they might perform better. In Milwaukee, they can be sponsored by Milwaukee Public Schools, but also by the Milwaukee Common Council, UW-Milwaukee and Milwaukee Area Technical College.

the academy of learning and leadership (photo by adrian palomo)

The Common Council isn’t expected to vote on revoking the Academy of Learning’s charter until September. The council voted earlier this week to postpone the vote. “It gives the school some time to wind up their affairs,” says Assistant City Attorney Tom Gartner. The school has stated in letters to the city, he says, that it expects the council to cancel its charter this fall and pledges to help find new schools for the students.

Earlier this month, school management proposed an alternative plan to keep the school open. The school would contract with American Quality Schools, a nonprofit that manages several charter schools in Chicago and Northern Indiana, the plan said, to evaluate “faculty and staff” and manage the school’s academic programs as part of a “turn-around program.”

The Wisconsin Charter Schools Association wrote the city in support of the plan. “I am confident that this agreement will lead to the necessary academic turn-around of the Academy,” says Executive Director John Gee. “We do not want to see the 400-plus students of the Academy, many of whom live in the community, face another setback with the closing of their school.”

But the Charter School Review Committee, an advisory committee to the Common Council, concluded the plan was too little, too late, says Chairman Howard Fuller, director of Marquette University’s Institute for the Transformation of Learning. “In the committee’s opinion, (the school) probably should have made that decision in 2008,” he says, when the Committee put the school on probation.

The committee received the school’s proposal in early July. “We were not able to examine it, vet it or anything. There was not adequate time to consider such a proposal,” Fuller says. At a July 13 meeting, the committee recommended that the Common Council cancel the charter. On July 15, the council’s Steering and Rules Committee seconded the recommendation.

The school, according to Alex Runner, chief of staff to Common Council President Willie Hines, “appears to have been poorly managed and hadn’t created an environment conducive to learning.” The school is located in Hines’ district at 2739 N. 15th St. Runner says Hines has resisted closing the school but now sees no choice.

Schools compared

The charter school committee compared reading and math proficiency scores for Academy students in grade three through eight with those from three other charter schools, Central City Cyberschool, DLH Academy and the Milwaukee Academy of Science, and three Milwaukee public schools, LaFollette Elementary, Hopkins Elementary and Auer Elementary.

The schools were chosen, according to Fuller, for having similar percentages of African American students, special needs students and ones classified as economically disadvantaged. The comparison was done in response to concerns raised by the Academy that “nobody serves a population like they do,” he says.

Hines objected to the school’s characterization that its students were underperforming because of their backgrounds, Runner says.

The schools compared had between 95 and 99 percent black students (the Academy has 98.5), between 10 and 29 percent special needs students (the Academy has about 16 percent) and between 77 and 96 percent economically-disadvantaged students (the Academy tops this category with about 96 percent).

Although the schools have similar demographics, their students scored significantly higher in the 2009-2010 school year than those at the Academy. Between 40 and 65 percent of students at the non-Academy schools tested as proficient or advanced in reading, compared to 30 percent at the Academy. Between 30 and 58 percent of non-Academy schools tested as proficient or advanced in math, compared to about 17 percent at the academy.

In December 2008, the committee set four standards for the Academy, demanding improvement in reading grade levels and reading and math proficiency scores. As of July 7, the school had failed to meet all of the standards, though there were small signs of some year-to-year improvement in reading proficiency for fourth through eighth graders.

The Academy became a charter school in 2003. It constructed its current facility on vacant land given to it by the city. It expanded in 2007 with New Market Tax Credits, a federal program to assist low-income communities, and bonds issued by the Milwaukee Redevelopment Authority. Gartner says one of the reasons for postponing Tuesday’s vote on revoking the school’s contract was to prevent it from defaulting on the bonds.

Neither Camille Mortimore, founder and executive director of the school, nor Michael Schaalman, president of its board of directors, could be reached for comment. In a letter to the city, Schaalman writes that the school “recognizes and acknowledges that it will not be operating under a City of Milwaukee charter for the 2010-2011 school year.”

According to the Academy website, its summer school classes ended on Wednesday. Fuller and Runner say a school fair for the children displaced by the school’s closing is being planned for August. Runner says parents seeking help can call Hines’ office at 286-3771. Fuller says the committee began mailing letters to parents on Wednesday.

Despite the impending closure, a banner saying, “enroll now,” still hung on the outside of the Academy on Wednesday.

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