Reading, Writing, Roulette (cont.)
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King, Jr. Elementary--five minutes at most their trip takes them through one
of the most perilous neighborhoods in Milwaukee. The school playground and building
are neutral territory, but the blocks leading there can be a gauntlet. Walking
home from school
recently, Joe broke his glasses defending his sister in a fight with a schoolmate; without money to fix them, he's doing without. Located in an area so solidly Black that it was exempt from the city's court-ordered desegregation, King Elementary, with its colorful kente border around the top, sits like a lighthouse beacon in the early-morning fog.
Tidy rentals and owner-occupied homes surrounding the school belie the devastation of joblessness, drugs and crime. As Milwaukee lost many of its manufacturing businesses to southern and foreign enterprises--along with 20 percent of its White population to the suburbs--in the 1970's and 1980's, many Blacks in the area lost their tenuous grip on stable lives. In 1990 the proportion of African-American Milwaukeeans living in poverty was, at nearly 42 percent, one of the highest among all U.S. industrialized cities. And in a haze of crack cocaine in the late eighties and early nineties, drug-related shootings fueled a 253 percent increase in the city's homicide rate. Brenda Gordon tells of the neighborhood's drag dens and disappearing bodies. Crime has declined as it has elsewhere recently, but save an occasional fast-food place, corner grocery or liquor store, there are few businesses to provide economic relief for this community. So in 1997, when Wisconsin's infamous end to welfare pushed thousands of people off the rolls, it also pushed them into typically low-paying jobs.
To Josephine Mosley, principal of King Elementary, those facts are mere facts--not obstacles and certainly not excuses for her kids' performance. She knows that nearly all her 500 students come from households poor enough for them to receive free lunch. She also knows that many of her students are being raised by single moms or foster moms or grandmoms and that many of their lives at home are far from the calm that school provides. So while she has them from 8:30 A.M. to 3:00 P.M., she infuses them with a sense of purpose through the next school day. This morning it starts with Boyz II Men's inspirational "I Will Get There" over the PA system, followed by fifth-grader Jerrica Turner sharing the word for the day ("Possible. If I study it is possible to pass the reading test"), as well as school events and African-American history.
It's clear that King is no ordinary public school. But it is an example of what a public school should be. When Mosley became principal in 1988, "we were struggling, at the bottom of the heap," she says. She started a reading program for slower students, weekly merit recognition, a free period for teachers to meet and share concerns, and a system in which some students remain with the same teachers as they advance each grade. The King staff is 50 percent Black, while districtwide fewer than 20 percent of teachers are Black, 74 percent are White. And administrators, teachers and students