Having signed reform bills for eligibility for federal education funding, Gov. Jim Doyle said he may call a special session of the Legislature in order to grant the Milwaukee mayor control of the Milwaukee Public School system.

Doyle has already signed some education reform bills, including bills which would allow standardized test scores to be used on teacher evaluations, enable MPS to apply directly to the state for annual grants, track educational progress in various schools statewide and enhance standards for the state’s charter schools.

These bills bring the state closer to meeting requirements to apply for Race to the Top education grants, federal stimulus grants totaling $4 billion. It was these grants that brought President Barack Obama to a south-side middle school last week.

Yet since session ended Nov. 5, in order to complete the requirements, a special session of the Legislature may be necessary, a decision which Doyle spokesperson Lee Sensenbrenner said will be made when the time comes.

“We’re working with legislative leaders to accomplish what needs to get done,” Sensenbrenner said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

The session would be called in order to pass other eligibility bills, specifically one allowing mayoral control over MPS, according to a statement released Monday by Doyle’s office.

The proposed bill would maintain an elected school board in the Milwaukee district, but direct authority to make policies would be given to the mayor instead of the board, said one of five authors of the proposed bill, Sen. Jeff Plale, D-Milwaukee.

The mayor would then appoint the superintendent and the two would set policies and the school budget, making the school board a passive policy review board as well as a body working on constituent relations.

Currently, MPS is the largest school district in the state and has the largest black-white racial achievement gap in the country, Plale said, and this bill would improve MPS by making the mayor more responsible for the status of the school.

Sensenbrenner said Doyle agrees and thinks mayoral control would help create structure for the district and be the first step in a long-term effort to improve MPS.

However, others do not see the bill as beneficial but rather a poor answer to a serious problem, said Rep. Brett Davis, R-Oregon.

Davis said granting the mayor control over the district is not a good solution because the mayor has other issues he needs to turn his attention to, specifically health care and job creation.

A better solution, he said, would be to divide the Milwaukee district into six smaller districts. He also recommended better enforcement of current school procedures.

However, the fate of the bill seems to be controversial, as Davis said he thinks there seems to be a strong divide in support of the bill among Democrats. He said he is unsure if the measure will pass and it will be a matter the Democratic caucus will have to discuss in-depth.

Despite this, Plale said he is confident the bill will help Milwaukee schools improve.

“Is mayoral control a panacea? Absolutely not,” Plale said. “But the other option is nothing and that’s not an option to me.”