(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Elections Commission says there won’t be a recall against any Milwaukee Public School board members. Now, Milwaukee’s teachers’ union wants answers.
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association celebrated the Elections Commission declared MPS recall organizers failed to gather enough signatures to force a recall election against four Milwaukee School Board members.
“The people of Milwaukee have emphatically rejected this dishonest effort to remove good public servants from our democratically elected school board,” MTEA President Ingrid Walker-Henry said in a statement.
The MPS School Board Recall Collaborative wanted to force a new election against Board President Marva Herndon, Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi, member Erika Siemsen and at-large board member Missy Zombor because of MPS’s financial problems and the secrecy surrounding them.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission found the xollaborative was short by thousands of valid signatures.
MTEA said voters now need to know just who was behind the collaborative and why.
“The public faces of the recall effort were a private voucher school teacher and the founder of a now-shuttered private charter school. They claimed to represent a broad grassroots movement. It became clear in late July, however, there were indications that anonymous forces were working behind the scenes, including resigned former school board member Aisha Carr, according to campaign literature distributed by canvassers,” the union alleged in a statement.
Carr resigned from MPS’ board in May, just ahead of charges that she lied about where she lived in order to keep her board seat.
“Despite their embarrassing failure to submit adequate signatures, the people of Milwaukee should remember that this campaign was fueled by individuals and groups whose sole vision of education in Milwaukee is its complete privatization,” Walker-Henry added.
Walker-Henry didn’t provide any proof that school choice supporters drove the recall effort.
“Taxpayers also deserve answers. This dishonest campaign, which was ironically supposed to be about accountability and resource management, was a total waste of taxpayer dollars and staff resources,” she said.
Milwaukee Public Schools asked taxpayers for a $252 million tax increase in April. Voters approved it. But weeks later news broke that MPS’ finances were worse than first indicated, and that the district was in line to lose millions of dollars in both state and federal funding because of incomplete financial reports.
Those reports have not yet been turned in. So far, MPS has lost $17 million in federal Head Start dollars. Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction said Milwaukee Schools could lose as much as $50 million by the time the accounting is all done.