TransCenter:
The CITIES Project High School
700 W. Michigan St.
Milwaukee, WI 53233
TEL: 414.344.8480
FAX: 414.347.0110
Contact: Joseph OShea
History
CITIES Project High School had its inception in the last quarter of 2002 from conversations with teachers, parents, and students about experiential learning, the need for an innovative, interest driven approach to learning, and through the CITIES Project’s work with young people in a program called Public Achievement. CPHS is a new school which will open in September 2004.
Mission
CPHS will ensure its students meet all state and MPS academic standards and graduate from high school empowered to take responsibility for themselves, and the sustainability of their communities through active citizenship.
Background, Philosophy, and Vision
CITIES Project High School was founded upon the conviction that true education occurs in the context of community rebuilding. Education is an on-going process that a community uses to keep itself healthy by directing the energy and learning of the young toward the good of the community.
CPHS combines youth concerns and issues with project-based, experiential learning and makes rebuilding communities in Milwaukee part of its curriculum. To accomplish this task, all CPHS students are expected to engage in various forms of public work. The work will focus on improving the local economy of communities and helping the residents meet their basic needs as close to home as possible. Students identify issues for change and then develop and implement strategies for creating these positive changes. Through this work, students mature both as good neighbors and citizens, but also as thinkers and creators.
CPHS envisions a future where youth are recognized for the intrinsic energy and vitality they can bring to solving problems in their communities. While state educational standards and MPS learning targets provide a sound academic foundation, projects based on student interest embedded in the Public Achievement framework will allow students to meet standards creatively providing each student with the skills necessary to flourish in today’s world.
Staff/Faculty
- Dr. Daniel Grego
- Joseph O’Shea
- Scott Tiedge
- Jason Palmatier
- Kathryn Clark
Staff Biographies
Jason Palmatier
Jason Palmatier is the second Trinity Fellow in Marquette University’s Public Service - Dispute Resolution Masters Program working for the CITIES Project. His interest and passion for educational reform began during his undergraduate years at UW-Milwaukee where he completed a degree in History and Ethnic Studies with a minor in Cultural Anthropology. During the year that followed his undergrad work, Jason served one year in Americorps with a local non-profit agency called Project RETURN - assisting men and women coming out of the correctional system with their employment and housing needs. Jason will be a co-director of the CITIES Project High School when the doors open in September 2004, and has played a significant role in the creation of the school.
Scott Tiedge
Scott Tiedge graduated from Marquette University in 1995 with a Bachelor Degree in Writing Intensive English and English Literature. Following his undergraduate work, Mr. Tiedge served in the Peace Corps from 1997 to 1999 as a high school ESL teacher and a teacher trainer for the U.S. ecological program (GLOBE) in the Central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan. In 2000, Mr. Tiedge was accepted into Marquette University’s Trinity Fellowship program. He graduated in 2002 with a MA in Public Service - Administration of Justice. After receiving his Master’s, Mr. Tiedge has continued to, coordinate the Public Achievement Program in Milwaukee and co-develop the CITIES Project High School.
Joseph O’Shea
Joe graduated from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in 1999, with a B.S. in Criminal Justice and Sociology. Joe has been the Director of The CITIES Project since 2000, where he has worked to implement Public Achievement, an international youth-activism education initiative, in schools throughout the Milwaukee area. Joe has played a primary role in the co-creation of the CITIES Project High School, and looks forward to joining the CPHS co-directorate when the school opens in 2004.
Kathryn Clark
Kathryn Clark is finishing her undergraduate program this year in Morocco as a Global Studies Major and Spanish Language and Cultures Minor at Alverno College. She spent a year (2001–2002) of her undergraduate education enrolled in an international honors program at the Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands. As a 1999 high school exchange student in Costa Rica, Kathryn completed an intensive Spanish language course at the University of San Jose, Costa Rica. Her commitment to transforming public education is a result of her studies abroad and education at Alverno College. As co-creator of the CITIES Project High School, she plans to finish her undergraduate degree in Morocco before returning to open the school in September 2004.
An excerpt from “The Odyssey of the CITIES Project”
The CITIES Project is now in its ninth year of working toward its basic goal: “To prepare all our children for lifetimes of community rebuilding.” In its first five years, the project’s principal strategies were to operate a mentoring program designed to train young leaders and to break down the barriers between communities and educational resources and to mobilize a network of families, activists, and resources toward the achievement of
systemic educational change in Milwaukee through support of diverse educational options and the restoration of decision making power to parents, children, and concerned citizens who are well-informed about the best available learning options.
Four years ago, The CITIES Project began focusing its attention on Public Achievement, an international youth initiative that engages citizens of all ages to be creators, decision-makers, and agents of change in the world. From the outset, The CITIES Project decided to implement Public Achievement in Milwaukee so that it contributed to the movement for educational reform described above. Students in the program, who learn to see themselves as change agents, model for their elders an approach to citizenship in which the commonwealth is understood to be the product of community members actively engaged in public work. The success of the Public Achievement program and the enthusiasm with which it was received has led TransCenter to conclude that Public Achievement would make a unique unifying theme for a highly innovative, project-based, interest-driven curriculum ideal for a high school serving a small community of learners.
Download: “The Odyssey of The CITIES Project” PDF (32 Kb)
[click here to learn more about Public Achievement]
