The Madison Metropolitan School District has a problem with race.
This is not to say that one or two teachers in the district have a problem with race — although, given recent events, this is likely true. Rather, the district’s administration has created a culture which fosters racism on every level.
MMSD’s policies perpetuate discrimination within its schools, and the assault of an 11-year-old black student by an administrator last month is merely the latest symptom. While Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham is publicly apologetic, her open letter to MMSD families fails to provide real solutions to the issues at hand.
Currently, an educator at Whitehorse Middle School is on leave after punching a student and ripping three braids out of her head. The educator in question, Rob Mueller-Owens, is known for his work in restorative justice, and in 2015, attended a conference organized by the Obama administration in Washington D.C. on reforming school discipline.
Nevertheless, when an 11-year-old girl refused to leave a classroom after spraying too much perfume, Mueller-Owens chose to respond with fists. It is difficult to imagine race was not a factor in Mueller-Owens’ judgement — Mueller-Owens is white and the student is black.
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This is only the most recent incident. Last fall, a Middleton bus driver was fired after hitting a black student. Since November 2018, there have been five reports of teachers or substitute-teachers using racial slurs in the classroom.
Just last year, the school board approved $366,000 in funding to continue stationing police officers in the district’s four high schools, despite reports indicating that these officers arrested four black students for every white student from 2013-16 and widespread opposition from students and parents.
Two months later, the district doubled down on criminalizing students by approving another $30,000 in funding for metal-detecting wands in the high schools. None of these issues are isolated events, and the decisions to increase security funding — despite evidence of discrimination — indicates that the district may actually be moving backwards.
Following the most recent events, district superintendent Jennifer Cheatham sent a letter to families of the district in which she expressed remorse about the incident without presenting any meaningful changes. In the letter, Cheatham promised a new process for reporting incidents, a review of protocols, and a new training program for staff. These proposed changes are surface-level — they will not solve MMSD’s problems with race because they do not address the roots of the issue.
Black students currently make up 18 percent of MMSD’s students, but only 2.8 percent of the district’s teachers and 7 percent of its staff are black. A move to hire more black staff would make a direct change, both at the administrative level, where more representation could ensure that a greater range of perspectives are considered before decisions are made, and at the classroom level, where students of color frequently feel underrepresented.
Furthermore, while MMSD took a positive step in participating in the Black Lives Matter at School week of action this February, one of the national campaign themes, “Fund Counselors, not Cops,” was conspicuously absent from the discussion as the district continues its criminalization of students of color.
The district has ignored the concerns of its students, with the school board ending public meetings early and scheduling new ones with a day’s notice so as to undemocratically make a decision they knew to be unwanted.
Further, neither the hiring of more black staff nor the current issues with policing are addressed in the superintendent’s letter. To believe that the district could address its problems with race without confronting these issues is more than wishful thinking — it is willful ignorance.
At this moment, Mueller-Owens remains on administrative leave, despite the video evidence of the incident. Mueller-Owens should have been fired immediately. This, coupled with the weakness of the superintendent’s apology, gives the impression that MMSD administration either doesn’t care about addressing these issues, or doesn’t realize it has an issue at all. If the first step in solving a problem is admitting that one has a problem, MMSD still has quite a way to go.
Adam Fendos ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in international studies.
