Carmen-Pulaski high school co-location shows promise

On a mid-September morning, Pulaski High School on Milwaukee’s south side appeared peaceful and studious, its hallways free of roaming students and Principal Lolita Patrick holding sway in front of the auditorium.

Teachers instruct with the doors open now. Students wear uniforms, suspensions and incidents are down and the lunchroom is far more civilized this year, she said.

Those are small but meaningful steps for Pulaski, a struggling high school embarking on a big, urgent turnaround while hosting a new upstairs neighbor: Carmen Southeast, the third campus of the Milwaukee-based Carmen Schools of Science and Technology charter network. Downstairs, Pulaski is working on cementing an International Baccalaureate program into its curriculum.

The co-location deserves particular attention because the proposal to put Carmen in Pulaski drew a pitched fight last fall between Carmen supporters and the teachers union. Carmen is a popular, high-expectations charter school that wanted to add a third campus. Pulaski is a traditional high school with extra space because of declining enrollment. Patrick and MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver were in favor of the co-location, but the Milwaukee School Board was split. A key member changed his mind, and a narrow 5-4 vote let the partnership proceed.

MPS board OKs plan to house charter high school at Pulaski

A year later the schools are in the early stages of sharing space and sports teams and regular meetings between administrators. As Pulaski's I.B. program grows and Carmen expands — the charter network this week won a competitive federal grant to support its growth — the partnership between the high schools could become a national example for how to co-mingle charter- and conventional-school thinking in one building.

"I think there's a renewed sense of hope among the staff at Pulaski," Patrick said.

School co-location fights have rocked communities around the country. From Los Angeles to New York, the disagreements have often centered on whether kids in conventional schools are getting pushed out to favor charter-school programs that don't have to play by the same rules. Charter schools are public schools given flexibility in exchange for meeting performance goals, and they often do not employ unionized teachers. As a result, placing charters inside traditional public schools can bring competing mindsets on educational practices into sharp relief.

Sharing a facility alone is not unique. Carmen's flagship campus has long shared space in an MPS building at 1712 S. 32nd St. with ALBA, a charter elementary school. But Carmen's founder and head of schools, Patricia Hoben, proposed sharing not only space with Pulaski but also ideas and instructional approaches. Earlier, Hoben had proposed doing something similar inside Bradley Tech High School in Walker's Point, but MPS leaders announced other reforms for Tech.

The idea to co-locate Carmen inside a traditional MPS high school bristled teachers union members who believe Carmen picks and chooses its students to achieve higher-than-average achievement, something Carmen leaders dispute. While Carmen is an MPS charter school, it does not employ unionized teachers.

Kim Schroeder, president of the Milwaukee teachers union, was against the idea of housing "two completely different types of schools" together. Carmen has fewer kids with disabilities and it doesn't have to hire fully certified teachers, he said.

"Carmen is good at selling themselves as a great school, but when you break it down, it's not really there," he said.

State data actually shows Carmen's flagship campus has a 97% attendance rate compared to 71% at Pulaski, and a 19.2 average ACT composite score for seniors compared to 14.1 for Pulaski seniors. To Schroeder's point, Carmen's flagship campus has historically served far fewer special-education students than a traditional MPS school. The new Carmen Southeast has about 15% special-needs students. Downstairs, Pulaski has 29%, according to MPS.

Carmen has been trying to diversify. Three years ago, the network took over an MPS school on the northwest side that was shut down for low performance. Carmen Northwest Campus is now a combined middle/high school. More than 14% of students there have disabilities, and middle school students showed big gains in reading and math achievement. High school attendance at Carmen Northwest was also 10 percentage points higher than the district high school average of 82%.

The improvement at Carmen Northwest was what prompted Milwaukee School Board member Wendell Harris last year to cast a critical swing vote in favor of the Carmen-Pulaski partnership. He had been elected with the help of the teachers union on an anti-charter platform, and the move was unpopular. At one point protesters gathered outside Harris' house, telling the former NAACP leader he was taking the schools back to "separate and unequal."

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Looking back, Harris said he's had no second thoughts. But he understood the protesters' feelings.

"It wasn't an easy decision, but it was one I had to make," he said.

Work behind the scenes

About 170 Carmen freshmen are now taking classes on Pulaski's third floor, where lockers are freshly painted in the charter school's signature burgundy. Downstairs, MPS leaders had hoped Patrick could attract 800 students this fall. She beat projections with 896.

Eventually, both schools will have around 800 students in a building designed for 1,600.

A lot of unglamorous work behind-the-scenes moved Carmen-Pulaski forward. Each side chose a co-director for the partnership: Aaron Shapiro, a regional director of high schools for MPS, and Jodi Goldberg from Carmen. Groups of staff and students from both Carmen and Pulaski schools discussed how to share facility space, sports teams, professional development, academics, even relations with neighbors.

Patrick began meeting regularly with Carmen Southeast's principal, Aaron Lippman. Carmen has long required school uniforms; Patrick said she had wanted the same for Pulaski.

"Parents are saying it's the best thing we've ever done," she said.

Carmen students now have access to a swim team, football team and tennis team at Pulaski. Shared classes might happen in the future. Both schools are using block schedules.

Carmen requires a multi-day freshmen orientation to make sure new students understand the technology and behavior expectations and uniform dress before the first day of classes. This year Carmen and Pulaski students did that orientation together. The idea spread. MPS implemented a similar three-day freshman orientation at all high schools this fall.

There are still plenty of differences. Pulaski and Carmen have staggered start times 30 minutes apart. The I.B. work is unique to Pulaski. Carmen requires all children to pass their classes with a C or higher to graduate. And Carmen's ninth graders aren't invited to the Pulaski homecoming dance. They'll have their own mixer at a different time.

"That was partly a parent decision," Goldberg said.

Hoben said the goal is to nurture two high-performing schools in one building that share best practices but that have distinct missions.

"You try to take the best of everybody's stuff," she said, "so that kids come out the winners.