Martin Luther King Day brings out over 450 people to Lancaster Public School for service, reflection
Over 450 people, including Gov. Tony Evers, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and Mayor Tom Barrett, filled the hallways and rooms of Lancaster Public School to celebrate Martin Luther King’s legacy as a teacher and unifier with a beautification project.
City Year, a community service organization associated with AmeriCorps, and Milwaukee Public Schools put the project together, inviting members of the community to turn out and paint murals and inspirational quotes throughout the school at 4931 N. 68th St.
Along with 100 City Year AmeriCorps members, more than 350 volunteers turned out.
Brigitte Hyler Richerson, the chapter president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Upsilon Mu, showed up and brought 12 of her sorority sisters with her.
“I grew up in this neighborhood,” she said, recalling how she attended Lancaster for summer school. “It’s refreshing that we’re doing something for this neighborhood.”
Tynesha Collins, 31, is also a member of the sorority and said volunteering on Martin Luther King Day is a tradition for her — so much so that she took a day off work to paint pennants for the students at Lancaster.
“After everything that he fought for, it’s important for us to celebrate his day in a way that he would appreciate,” she said.
Forty Alpha Kappa Upsilon Mu members signed up to participate in Martin Luther King Day events throughout the city, from serving breakfast at Vet’s Place to an event at the Martin Luther King Library.
Alyssa Trad came with some of her colleagues from the Manpower Group, a staffing firm headquartered in Milwaukee. She said she came out to show support for MPS and volunteering in general.
“MPS is a big part of the community and we should support it,” she said.
Lancaster is a turnaround arts school, which means it tries to incorporate arts in every part of the curriculum.
Trad, part of a team tasked with painting colorful keyboards and music notes on the wall, noticed.
“It’s a way to embrace the school and what they try to instill in the kids,” she said.
Taylor Karlson, a 25-year-old who works in software sales, was an AmeriCorps member from 2015-16; she said the students are why she returned.
“It’s a great change of pace and it feels good to be back,” she said. “I miss being with students. I love students.”
For many, the day represented a break from many of the challenges facing MPS — funding, achievement gaps and representation, to name a few.
But for Rep. David Bowen, D-Milwaukee, taking time to celebrate a champion of equality also means acknowledging when that equality is lacking: among MPS' teaching staff.
“Dire need” of representation at MPS
When Bowen was a student at Lloyd Street School in the '90s, he didn’t have many black teachers.
“If we had African American teachers, they were African American women,” Bowen said. “I didn’t have my first African American teacher until fourth grade.”
Bowen was at Lancaster School on Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King Day, and he said he hopes more minorities look to teaching as a way of affecting the future.
“The fact that Martin Luther King believed that education was about, not just intelligence but intelligence plus character, and making sure that we’re teaching our young people to think critically,” Bowen said. “And the way that you’re able to do that is with a diverse teacher workforce. We know that’s part of the solution of closing the achievement gap.”
Data released in October paints an ugly picture of the reality minorities face. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, Wisconsin has the largest achievement gap between white and black students.
One way some officials are looking to help close the gap is by encouraging more minorities to become teachers.
“We believe there’s a really big role in closing the achievement gap with teachers of color and especially black teachers,” Bowen said. “It really encourages you to be able to see that the folks that are teaching with this immense amount of knowledge come from the same community you come from and have experienced the same thing that you have experienced.”
In MPS, of the more than 75,000 students, black students make up 54% of the student population, compared with white and Latino students who make up 11% and 27%, respectively, and Asian students, who make up 7%.
When it comes to MPS staff, totaling nearly 4,600, white teachers make up 69% of the teaching staff, compared with black teachers, at 17%; Latino teachers, at 9%; and Asian teachers, at 3%.
For the last three years, Milwaukee Public Schools has been working with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Milwaukee Area Technical College to create a high school curriculum that would allow juniors and seniors to take college credit toward becoming a teacher while still in high school.
Pablo Muirhead, coordinator of teacher education for MATC, said Wisconsin is in “dire need” of more minority teachers, and the Grow Your Own initiative could soon help improve current numbers.
“We think we’ve landed in a good space now where we’re going to be able to offer juniors and seniors about 20 undergraduate credits that will build toward a degree,” Muirhead said, adding that the students can transfer those credits to MATC or UWM to complete their teacher licensure. “This is something we’re hoping to expand beyond MPS and to open it up to other districts as well because there’s a dire need to build up the ranks.”
Thirteen-year-old Ean Phillips, a student at Golda Meir School, said he thinks having more minority teachers would be good for students.
“At my school, I see a lot of white teachers, I don’t see a lot of black teachers or (Latino) teachers,” Phillips said. “Even though I think some kids can relate to teachers, I think that some of them don’t think that they could always go to a teacher.”
Having a diverse group of teachers, Phillips said, could help students develop a tighter bond with their teachers.
“If you find somebody that you have a good bond with or that you can go to whenever needed, I think that’s a good thing,” Phillips said.
Moving MLK's message beyond his day
Latricia Johnson, the school's improvement coordinator, has been at MPS for 27 years, and Ladela Greer, a parent coordinator, has been coaching for 12.
Greer said the murals raise student morale and give youth even more pride in their school.
“I think it’s important that the kids see there’s someone out here that cares about them beyond their family,” he said.
Johnson said even though today is great, tomorrow will be even greater.
“When our kids come in tomorrow and see all of the different murals and paintings — to see their eyes light up — that’s the real payoff.”
For people like Collins, Karlson and even the state’s politicians, Martin Luther King Day is not a day off — it’s a day on.
Lt. Gov. Barnes said volunteering has been an MLK Day tradition for him since 2013. The day, he said, brings up “the most urgent and persistent question: What are we going to do for others?”
He was joined by Gov. Evers, who said the federal holiday should be a reminder that King used his power to bring people together.
“It’s an opportunity to think about service, how we can do better as a state and as a nation,” he said.
Mayor Barrett was painting green triangles, part of a broad mural that spells the word “Honor” over a beige, black and olive spread.
He said his celebration of Martin Luther King Day started Sunday, at the Marcus Center’s 36th annual event for King's birthday and continued Monday morning, at an 8 a.m. breakfast held by the YMCA.
But he hopes it will continue long after the clock strikes midnight.
“You want this to grow," he said, gesturing to the volunteers and hustle and bustle of the hall around him, and not just be a one day thing.”
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