News Room:
The Technical Assistance & Leadership Center (TALC New Vision), working with the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the Alliance for Choices in Education (ACE), announced today eight new groups that will receive small school planning grants of up to $50,000 in the third cycle of A New Vision of Secondary Education in Milwaukee, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The New Vision, supported by the $17.25 million Gates Foundation grant, is an ambitious attempt to redesign high school education in Milwaukee. The plan calls for the creation of more than sixty new small high schools that will open within or in partnership with MPS, as independent charter schools sponsored by UW-Milwaukee or the City of Milwaukee, or as private schools that can participate in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP).
“I think it’s wonderful to have received the grant,” said Steven Robertson of the Destiny High School planning team. “It’s exciting to have the opportunity to help serve kids and raise them up with a greater purpose in life.”
After reviewing twenty-two proposals and interviewing the most promising applicants, evaluation teams selected one private school proposal, three MPS instrumentality charter school proposals, and four proposals to be chartered either by the City of Milwaukee or UW-Milwaukee.
Approved proposals for schools that will open in 2006–07 include:
• Destiny High School, focusing on career preparation for media, business, and technology while emphasizing each student’s physical and mental health and well being;
• Downtown Institute of Arts and Letters, featuring a completely integrated arts and humanities curriculum and offering year round classes;
• Milwaukee Career Exploration Center, providing a multi-cultural, liberal arts and personalized education curriculum; and
• Strive Media Institute, focusing on mass communications through project-based work.
Approved proposals for schools that will open in 2007–08 include:
• Environmental Leadership Academy, focusing on environmental studies through project-based learning, supported by a mobile science lab;
• Multimedia School of Animation & Design, focusing on preparing students for early entry into professional careers in drawing, multimedia, animation and commercial art;
• Young Women Institute for Global Learning, a single gender school focusing on global inquiry-based learning; and
• WORK Institute, based on the “High Schools That Work” model that combines the content of traditional college preparatory studies with vocational studies.
In contrast to previous cycles, none of the proposals are seeking non-instrumentality charter status with MPS, and instead will seek charters with UWM and the City. “Chartering through the City or UWM has become increasingly important because MPS has already reached the cap limiting the number of contracted seats the district can offer,” commented TALC New Vision Executive Director Daniel Grego. This cap was negotiated between a prior administration and the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association.
For more information, contact: Daniel Grego, (414) 931–6225.
Download: “Eight New Planning Grants…” PDF (46 Kb)
