Portrait of MPS students sheds light on realities MPS must deal with in considering future of its schools

Fifteen million square feet of space at 144 locations. Seventeen buildings that date back to 1898 or earlier. More than 120 buildings that were built before 1950. Many schools that have enrollment well below capacity.

The physical aspects of planning for the future of Milwaukee Public Schools facilities come with a lot of challenges.

But the brick-and-mortar side of things is almost surely the easier part of figuring out what path MPS should pursue. The harder part will be the human factors. The state of kids in Milwaukee, especially in some sections of the city. The declining number of kids in the city. The challenges of appealing to parents in a climate where so many have chosen schools outside of MPS. The politics and emotions around any proposal to close some schools in a district that clearly has too many buildings for the number of students. The tightwire balancing act between financial needs of the system and financial realities of how much money there is.

And, hanging over all of it, the intractability of the problems that Milwaukee faces when it comes to poverty-related issues, plus the continuing sense of crisis around the functioning of MPS itself.

MPS leaders are heading into the heart of work on a master facilities plan for the district, including a set of meetings in the next few days to get public input.

As part of work on developing that plan, independent consulting firm Perkins Eastman led work that developed a data portrait of MPS students. The report sheds light on the realities — positive, negative and neutral — of MPS. Based mostly on data from the 2023-24 school year, here are a handful of things that can be learned from the consultant's report, which is titled "Who are the students of MPS?"

The consultants' report may be found at www.mpsfacilitiesplan.com/people .

There is little life to the concept of neighborhood schools in Milwaukee

Only one of six MPS students attend the school in a child's attendance area, as it is officially called. That figure doesn't vary much by age. Overall, 16% of students in kindergarten through fifth grade attend their neighborhood school. The figure is 14% for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, 16% for middle school students, and 11% for high school students.

Grade by grade erosion of enrollment

The number of students enrolled in MPS declines from grade to grade in every case except one. In other words, the number of first-graders in one year is higher than the number of second-graders in the following year — and so on, from year to year for every grade. This points to a major problem retaining students.

The decline from year to year is small in elementary years, generally 2% to 4%, except for a decline of 8% between fifth grade and sixth grade, which is a "transition year" from elementary to middle schools for many students.

The decline in high school years is larger: The number of 10th-graders is 22% less than the number of ninth-graders, the number of 11th-graders is 9% less than the number of 10th-graders, and the number of 12th-graders is 13% lower than the number of 11th-graders.

The one exception is from eight grade to ninth grade, with 26% more students in ninth grade than in eighth grade the previous year. But this is not a good thing because the main reason is that so many students are repeating ninth grade for at least the second time.

Differences between the north side and the south side

Previous reports compiled by MPS have shown that many schools on the south side have enrollment that is near or even above the listed capacity of their buildings. This is also true of many non-MPS schools on the south side. Much of this has to do with the growing number of children on the largely Hispanic south side compared to declining numbers of children on the largely Black north side. On the north side, many schools have enrollment far below their capacity.

The facilities consultant added a dimension to this discussion by analyzing what percentage of MPS students in each School Board district attend a school within that district. There are eight School Board districts, so this basically illustrates how many kids attend a school somewhat near where they live, even if it's not their neighborhood school.

The result: In four of the districts — those generally on the south side and east side — higher percentages of students attend a school within that district (between 50% and 55% of the students who live in that district) than in the other four districts, generally on the north side. In north side districts, well under 50% of MPS students attend schools in that district. For School Board District 3, covering much of the central north side, only 24% of students who live in that district attend a school in that district.

The report doesn't offer reasons for this, but permit me to suggest that it says something about how parents in different parts of Milwaukee feel about the schools near them. And it's not a very positive answer when it comes to the north side schools, many of which have long histories of low academic success for students.

Busing remains a central fact of life in MPS

As of September 2023, there were 36,199 students a day using MPS transportation to get to school, travelling an average of 3.4 miles each way. That means that more half of the students in MPS (54% of the total enrollment of 66,864 at that point) used one or another form of public transportation to get to school. And they are generally not going short distances.

The declining population of children

The report says, "Over the last 10 years, the total number of students has gone down by about 10,000, a 14% decrease. The biggest decline in student numbers at MPS is among elementary students. This means middle and high schools in the future might have fewer students as these children move up to higher grade levels."

That decline is projected to continue, based on the trends in births in Milwaukee in recent years. The analysis projects that the number of students in MPS will decline by 12% over the next decade. This would actually be a slower rate of annual decline than has been true in the last decade, but still a sign of continuing enrollment issues for MPS.

Segregation is a big fact of life in Milwaukee

Racial and ethnic segregation are an important fact of life, both in the Milwaukee area as a whole and within the city itself. The report says, "While MPS as an entire district is diverse, its individual schools are less diverse than national averages."

The consultants said 51% of students attend schools where 75% or more of the students are of one race or ethnicity, and 27% attend schools where 90% or more of students are of one race or ethnicity.

Overall, 50% of MPS students are Black, 28% are Hispanic, 9% are white, 9% are Asian or Pacific Islanders

The percentage of Black students has declined in recent years, as the percentage of Hispanic students has gone up. For some historical perspective on how much MPS and Milwaukee as a whole have changed, consider this: In 1976, when court-ordered racial desegregation began in MPS, about two-thirds of students were white. Now, fewer than one in 10 is white.

Other demographics about MPS students

75% of MPS students are considered "economically disadvantaged."

One bonus fact, not addressed in the consultant's report, is that only a bit over half of all the children in Milwaukee who are receiving publicly funded education are enrolled in the conventional MPS system. The rest are in private schools where students use publicly funded vouchers to support their schooling, charter schools, suburban and virtual schools where they enroll using Wisconsin's open enrollment law, or a few alternative schools.

The competition for enrollment on a landscape where school choice is huge factor is important in shaping the challenges facing MPS.

At a meeting on Sept. 26, the School Board balked at closing two small high school programs that serve teens who are generally not on successful paths in school. What will happen as the questions about closing programs and schools get bigger, more controversial, more political, and just plan tougher?

Too many buildings and too few students sounds like a problem that can be solved. But the real lives of children, parents and Milwaukee as a whole will make the coming months of deliberating on the plan for MPS facilities very difficult, almost certainly controversial — and potentially a failure.

Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. He can be reached at .