Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, speaks at a rally on Friday, March 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C, protesting the U.S. Education Department’s mass layoffs and President Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle the agency. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Dozens gathered Friday outside the U.S. Department of Education to protest the ousting of more than 1,300 employees and President Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle the agency.
As the fate of the 45-year-old department hangs in the balance following the cuts this week, demonstrators held signs at a rally outside of the Education Department headquarters with slogans including “Educate Don’t Eliminate” and “WWE: We Want Education,” a reference to Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment background.
“These cuts — this isn’t just about a department and a building — this is about federal streams of money that help students live (up to) their full potential,” said Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association, the country’s largest labor union.
“This agenda is about cutting funding and shipping it to private schools, it is about vouchers, make no mistake about it,” Anderson said. “It is about dismantling public education so that children cannot get what they deserve.”
Antoinette Flores, who worked for the U.S. Department of Education during the Biden administration, protests the agency’s mass layoffs during Friday’s “honk-a-thon” and rally. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
Trump has repeatedly pledged to shutter the agency, and McMahon confirmed this week that the sweeping cuts marked the first step in that process.
The president alone does not have the authority to close the department, and such an effort would need congressional approval.
‘Fight back’
Following a “honk-a-thon” on Independence Avenue, Sen. Mazie Hirono told the crowd that Trump and billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk “think that they can take a chain saw to government agencies, and they’ve been slashing and burning and firing thousands of people for no cause, and just recently, of course, they got to the Department of Education.”
Trump and Musk have taken significant steps to reduce federal government spending and go after what they see as waste, with the Education Department marking a major target of those efforts.
“But we are all here to fight back because this is no time to be sitting back thinking that other people are going to fight the battles for us,” the Hawaii Democrat said. “No, we are in it together.”
A demonstrator stands outside the U.S. Education Department in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
The rally came as department leaders announced this week that they would be cutting a substantial number of the agency’s staff, prompting concerns over how the department could carry out its responsibilities when roughly halving its workforce.
The layoffs make huge cuts to the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Federal Student Aid and Institute of Education Sciences, among other units, according to the nonprofit Education Reform Now, which advocates for more resources for education.
Fulfilling responsibilities
Some of the department’s many responsibilities include administering federal student aid, enforcing civil rights cases, providing Title I funding for low-income school districts and guaranteeing a free public education for children with disabilities via the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
Molly Cronin, a special education teacher in Virginia, holds a sign that reads: “Linda has no I.D.E.A.” — referencing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. During a recent interview on Fox News, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon could not answer what the acronym stood for when asked. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
Through a spokesperson, the department said Thursday its core responsibilities would not be impacted by the cuts.
But protesters Friday worried about the path to dismantling the department.
Molly Cronin, a special education teacher in Virginia, told States Newsroom that “if IDEA is not protected, if Title I is not protected, if Head Start is not funded, our most vulnerable children are going to be failed by the system, and we have a duty as educators to protect all students.”
Cronin, a member of the National Education Association who serves on the board of her local union, said one of the biggest misunderstandings about the agency “is that people think that the federal department is in control of the states and states’ curriculum and programs and all of that, when, in fact, that’s not true.”
Trump has vowed to shut down the department in his quest to move education “back to the states,” despite much of the funding and oversight of schools already occurring at the state and local levels. Legally, the federal government cannot control the curriculum of schools.
Legal challenges to the sweeping cuts are already taking shape, after 21 Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration Thursday over the efforts.
Prior to the mass layoffs, the department already witnessed dramatic downsizing in the weeks since Trump took office, with major contract cuts and staff buyouts.
Cuts make mission harder
Antoinette Flores, who worked for the Education Department during the Biden administration, said she knows many of the people harmed by the layoffs.
“These are colleagues, these are friends, these are dedicated public servants that help students, and it’s devastating to see what’s happening.”
Flores, who focuses on higher education, told States Newsroom the massive cuts are “going to make it much more challenging for students to receive grants and loans that they’re entitled to.”
Rather than go after inefficiencies in the federal government, as Trump and Musk have said is their goal, Flores said a smaller federal workforce would actually “increase fraud, waste and abuse.”
Rep. Brent Jacobson (R-Mosinee) said extended supervision, probation and parole are tools that give people a second chance with the expectation that they will not commit other crimes. Screenshot via WisEye.
The Wisconsin Assembly passed a slate of criminal justice related bills Thursday, including a requirement to revoke probation or parole for people charged with crimes and implementing financial penalties if Milwaukee Public Schools doesn’t return police officers to school buildings.
Republican lawmakers said the bills were necessary to improve public safety in Wisconsin.
“Wisconsinites in almost every part of our state have seen that there are areas of our state that have sincere and real concerns,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said during a press conference.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said during floor debate that lawmakers should be crafting “smart” legislation to ensure people are safe across the state, but that the bills fall short of that goal. She said lawmakers should be focused on investing in safety.
“We can use evidence based, data driven practices to lower recidivism, to save taxpayer dollars and invest in rehabilitation and treatment to keep our communities safe,” Neubauer said. “Democrats are serious about safety, but the majority of bills in front of us today are not.”
Rep. Ryan Clancy said in a statement after the session that lawmakers spent the day on “considering badly written, badly conceived bills that will harm people and waste public resources” and said Republicans were refusing to acknowledge that mass incarceration and prison overcrowding are problems for the state.
“It’s wildly irresponsible to even consider increasing penalties and interfering with the very few tools of leniency we have with a prison system holding 5,000 more people than intended,” Clancy said. “But here we are.”
A couple of the bills would implement stricter requirements for dealing with criminal charges for people released from prison.
AB 85 would require supervising corrections officials to recommend revoking extended supervision, parole or probation for formerly incarcerated people who are charged with a new crime after their release. It passed 53-43.
The Department of Corrections found in a fiscal estimate that the bill would result in approximately 6,280 additional revocation cases each year. It also found that there would be an increase in operations costs by $85 million in the first year of enactment and a permanent increased operations cost of about $245 million after the population is annualized in the second year.
Vos said that the bill should be simple. He said that people who are out on parole have been given the “privilege” of being released from prison.
“Do you stand with the victim and the public or do you stand with the criminal who has reoffended and given up the privilege that he was briefly granted?” Vos rhetorically asked. “I think the price is worth it — $300 million to keep the people safe.”
Jacobson said the bill is necessary to address the “revolving door” in the prison system and ensure criminals don’t have the opportunity to victimize people. He said that extended supervision, probation and parole are tools that give people a second chance with the expectation that they will not commit other crimes.
“In far too many cases, a person released under state supervision continues the behavior that resulted in them going to prison in the first place,” Jacobson said. “It seems like common sense that someone who’s been convicted of a crime, is released under state supervision and returns to committing crimes, should have their release revoked. Far too often that is not the case.”
Clancy said in his statement that Republicans were “openly misleading the public and their colleagues about the contents and impacts of those bills.” He noted that the bill would be “triggered when someone is merely charged with a crime” but not found guilty.
AB 66 would require prosecutors to get a court’s approval to dismiss certain criminal charges. It passed 53-44.
Rep. Alex Joers (D-Middleton) said the bill would “remove prosecutorial discretion” and impose limits on those trying to uphold the law.
Jacobson, who authored the bill, argued it would support law enforcement and protect Wisconsinites from being victimized. He noted that Wisconsin law allows prosecutors to dismiss or amend charges or enter into deferred prosecution agreements.
“In the Legislature, we can pass all the penalties we like. It won’t matter if the justice system won’t apply those penalties,” Jacobson said. The bill, he said, would add an additional layer of oversight and transparency by requiring prosecutors to get court approval to dismiss or amend charges in cases involving one of seven serious crimes. Those include sexual assault, crimes against a child, theft of an automobile, reckless driving resulting in great bodily harm and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.
“These crimes leave lasting impacts and it’s our job as officials to take these seriously,” Jacobson said.
Lawmakers also passed a couple of bills that would increase penalties for certain crimes.
AB 61, which would increase penalties for injuring or killing an animal used by police or firefighters, passed in a voice vote.
Specifically, the bill would increase injuring an animal to a Class H felony, which is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment for up to six years. Killing an animal would be increased to a Class G felony, which is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 or imprisonment for up to 10 years.
AB 86 passed in a voice vote. The bill would increase the penalty for child sex trafficking if the crime involved at least three victims who were children at the time the crime was committed from a Class C felony to a Class A felony. As a Class A felony, the crime could be punished with life imprisonment.
AB 89 would allow multiple acts of theft or retail theft committed by the same person to be prosecuted as a single crime, and the value of the thefts to be combined in determining the penalty. It passed 71-26, with 18 Democrats joining Republicans in support.
School resource officers in MPS
Lawmakers also passed AB 91, which would implement financial penalties for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the city of Milwaukee if either stop complying with a state law that requires police officers in schools.
Wisconsin Act 12, which passed in 2023, provided increased state funding for local governments and also implemented requirements that MPS place 25 officers in its schools by Jan. 1, 2024. The district was late to begin following the law, and a judge recently ordered the district and city to comply with the state law and instructed the district and the city to split the cost for the officers evenly. The Milwaukee Common Council and MPS Board both approved an agreement to make this happen earlier this month.
The bill was introduced, its sponsors said, to ensure the district complies both now and in the future.
An amendment to the bill changed the cost-sharing from 25% for the city of Milwaukee and 75% for the district to an even split between the two entities.
If there is noncompliance, 10% of the city’s shared revenue payment will be withheld by the state and 25% of the school district’s state aid payments would be withheld.
MPS has not had officers in schools since 2016, and the district ended its contract with the Milwaukee Police Department in 2020 in response to student and community opposition to the practice, a point that Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) pointed out during floor debate.
Madison said that when he was a student at a school staffed with officers a friend of his had an encounter that left him in the hospital.
“Two students were fighting. School safety officers came in and de-escalated the situation. As a friend of mine went to go check on his sister, who had been involved in the incident, I got to see school resource officers grab him, lift him in the air and body-slam him on the concrete of our lunchroom floor,” Madison said. “His shoulder was dislocated and his lip was busted, and he had to undergo surgery to navigate that situation. That wasn’t the only time that this happened in our school, where students were harmed by school resource officers.”
Madison said police officers in schools are a “failed approach.”
“Thanks to Act 12, and thanks to this bill. We’ll continue to create harms for our students… Our schools shouldn’t look like prisons. They shouldn’t work like prisons, and we shouldn’t treat students like prisoners in a space of learning, creativity and exploration. This takes Milwaukee schools in a bad direction.”
Clancy pointed out that MPS is not the only school district without officers in schools. Some other districts are Madison Metropolitan School District, Sherwood, Nicolet, Glendale River Hills.
“This is an attack on Milwaukee, and this is an attack specifically on the Black, brown, and Indigenous young people,” Clancy said.
Bill author Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) said that the bill is needed because Milwaukee schools continue to call the police to deal with incidents. He cited a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report that found MPS averaged 3,700 police calls each year over 11 years.
“If MPS doesn’t want cops in their schools, why do they keep calling them?” Donovan said.
“Some say that this legislation or the penalties are not necessary. What is the alternative? The state just allow open defiance of state law? It took an MPS parent to sue the district before any movement was made,” Donovan said. “This legislation ensures this never happens again… There must be consequences for breaking the law, and how can we expect MPS to teach our children respect for authority and the rule of law when they apparently have none themselves.”
Other bills passed include
AB 75 to require the state Department of Justice to collect and report a list of facts about each criminal case filed in Wisconsin. It passed 54-43. Rep. Russell Goodwin (D-Milwaukee) joined the Republicans in voting for the bill.
AB 87 to require a person convicted of child trafficking to pay restitution immediately, and would authorize the seizure of their assets in lieu of payment. It also would require that anyone convicted of a felony must pay all outstanding financial obligations from their conviction before their right to vote is restored. It passed 53-44.
AB 74 to require public school boards, private school governing bodies and charter school operators to notify the parent or guardian of a student who is an alleged victim or target of a school employee’s sexual misconduct. It passed in a voice vote.
AB 78 to allow municipalities to impound a reckless driver’s vehicle whether or not it belongs to the driver. It also requires police to determine if the vehicle has been reported stolen, and if it has been, to release it to the original owner at no cost. It passed in a voice vote.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump are busy smashing the state. Wisconsinites will have a chance to weigh in on candidates who support and oppose the anti-government crusade on April 1. | Getty Images Creative
The new Trump era is putting Republican nihilism to the test. In our closely divided swing state, the first official indication of whether Trump voters are developing buyers’ remorse will come, fittingly, on April Fool’s Day.
In the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, candidate Brad Schimel has received Elon Musk’s endorsement and is benefitting from a huge ad buy by Musk’s political action committee. And while some Republicans have expressed qualms about Trump and Musk’s assertions that they have unchecked power to ride roughshod over judges and the U.S. Constitution, Schimel has, notably, sided with Trump and Musk against the courts.
Last month, Schimel took to Vicki McKenna’s rightwing talk radio show to denounce the prosecution and sentencing of the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol after Trump lost in 2020, saying juries in Washington, D.C., were too liberal to deliver a fair verdict. Recently, on the same talk radio program, he criticized federal judges for blocking the ransacking of federal agencies by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), accusing the judges of “acting corruptly” by daring to issue temporary restraining orders.
The race between Schimel and Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford will determine the ideological balance of the Court and, it seems, whether a majority of justices believe in the integrity of the court system at all.
Also on the April 1 ballot is the race for state schools superintendent, which pits a lobbyist for the private school voucher industry against a defender of public schools — an existential choice as the growth of schools vouchers is on track to bankrupt our state’s public school system and enrollment caps on voucher programs are set to come off next year.
The ideological struggle over the future of our state was on stark display this week as Gov. Tony Evers presented his budget plan — an expansive vision that uses the state surplus to boost funding for K-12 schools and the University of Wisconsin, health care, clean water and rural infrastructure, and leaves a cushion to help protect communities against what Evers called the “needless chaos caused by the federal government” under Trump.
In a familiar ritual, Republican legislators immediately shot down Evers’ plan, denounced it as “reckless spending” and promised to throw it in the trash and replace it with a stripped-down alternative based on austerity and tax cuts.
“Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump and his agenda to cut spending and find inefficiency in government,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos declared.
But did they?
It’s not clear that most Wisconsinites wanted what Trump and Musk are delivering — cuts to health care and veterans’ services, the claw-back of infrastructure projects, mass firings at the park service and the chaotic suspension of promised federal funds for child care and other essential services in Wisconsin.
For generations, Republicans have complained about “red tape” and “big government” and promised “freedom” and lower taxes to constituents who liked the sound of all that. Under Trump, we are seeing anti-government ideology reach its full, unchecked fruition. Trump’s No. 1 private donor, the richest man in the world, is laughing all the way to the bank. He’s using his access to trillions of dollars in taxpayer funds to cancel food programs for poor children and to bolster federal contracts that enrich himself.
This, in the end, is what privatization is all about — taking the collective wealth of millions of people who contribute to maintaining a decent, healthy society and concentrating it in the hands of one very rich, self-interested man.
The long-term, existential struggle between private wealth and the public good in Wisconsin includes the fight over whether to fund public schools or give away money to subsidize the tuition of private school families. It includes whether to be the second-to-last state to finally offer 12 months of postpartum Medicaid coverage to new mothers — something even our Republican legislators support, minus Vos. The two sides of our divided government are locked in a battle over whether our universities, public parks, infrastructure, clean water and affordable housing are a boondoggle or something we ought to protect.
Given what’s happening to our country, Wisconsinites will have to think hard about which side they’re on.
The Milwaukee public school district struggles with a “culture resistant to change” that has undermined its ability to function properly, disproportionately harming its most vulnerable students, an audit ordered by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and released on Thursday found.
Evers, who served as Wisconsin’s superintendent of schools before becoming governor, ordered the independent audit last year after it became known the district failed to submit financial reports to the state leading to the resignation of the district’s superintendent and the withholding of funding by state officials.
The audit found that the Milwaukee Public Schools district, which is the state’s largest, with more than 66,000 students, must make sweeping, high-level changes to be more transparent with parents and taxpayers.
“MPS must make systemic changes to ensure that students — particularly the most vulnerable — are at the center of every decision,” the audit by MGT of America Consulting said. “Ultimately, this work is in service of students, whose future success hinges on a district capable of delivering equitable, high-quality education.”
Auditors identified “critical issues stemming from leadership and staff turnover, fragmented planning, outdated systems, and unproductive reporting protocols, which have led to siloed operations and inefficient practices.”
Evers, in a statement, urged the district to quickly accept the audit’s 29 recommendations.
“This audit is a critical next step for getting MPS back on track and, ultimately, improving outcomes for our kids,” Evers said.
The school district said in a statement that the audit will serve as a guide for improvement.
“While acknowledging the need for focused support, the report makes clear that we have an opportunity to build on this momentum, strengthening our schools and communities while creating a more unified path forward,” the district said.
The audit was released two days after Milwaukee Public Schools announced it was hiring former Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius as its new superintendent. The audit also comes amid a race for the state superintendent of schools, in which school and student performance is a top issue.
Evers made $5.5 million in public funds available for a pair of audits. The first one cost $2.5 million, and Evers said the remaining $3 million will be used to help the district implement the audit’s recommendations. He is proposing that an additional $5 million be spent to address future audit results, including one pending related to instruction.
The money would only be awarded if the state is satisfied that the district is making progress, Evers said.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Unless things change soon, it appears unlikely that the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Public Schools will meet the Feb. 17 deadline to place at least 25 student resource officers in schools.
Wisconsin Act 12, a law enacted in summer 2023, mandated that police officers be placed in MPS and stipulated that they must first complete 40 hours of training through the National Association of School Resource Officers.
This has yet to happen.
A school resource officer is a law enforcement officer who works full time in collaboration with a school district, according to Act 12.
School resource officers typically carry firearms, according to the National Association of School Resource Officers.
No trainings scheduled
Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said no Milwaukee Police Department officers have completed or are scheduled to take the weeklong training before Feb. 17.
“We are never going to recommend that an officer start working in a school without first being put through this training,” Canady said. “We’re talking about the most unique assignment in law enforcement: putting men and women in schools and trusting them to do good work with adolescents in the school environment.”
MPD did not confirm its timeline for training or whether it has enough officers who have completed the training in the past.
Even if there were officers with past training, though, that wouldn’t necessarily be the best or safest option, Canady said.
“We don’t have a timeline on when you should retake the training,” but “there have been massive changes” in the past five years, Canady said.
Subjects that have been updated or added include training on how adolescent brains develop, forms of bias and how to understand trauma, he said.
A spokesperson for MPD deferred all questions to the City Attorney’s Office, stating the department is “unaware of the status of the agreement.”
Several attempts to speak with the City Attorney’s Office were unsuccessful as were attempts to speak with every member of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors except one.
Training is the most important concern when it comes to officers in schools for Henry Leonard, Milwaukee Public Schools board director of District 7.
Without this training, Leonard said he fears “a haphazard approach to this and it turns into a disaster.”
Next steps
There are no consequences for having not met the 2024 deadline stipulated by Act 12, according to an analyst with the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan agency that provides research and legal services to lawmakers.
An additional hearing has been scheduled if the Feb. 17 deadline is not met.
Jeff Fleming, a spokesman for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, said there have been some productive meetings between the city and MPS.
“The Mayor is optimistic the outstanding issues can be resolved,” he wrote in an email to NNS.
How we got here
In 2016, MPS pulled officers from inside its schools and, four years later, ended a contract with MPD for patrols outside its buildings.
Act 12 required the city to beef up its police force by 2034 and ordered officers back into MPS by Jan. 1, 2024. That deadline came and passed as the school district and city jostled over who would pay the estimated $2 million cost to fund the officers.
Pressure to bring officers back into schools picked up after a mother of an MPS student who was bullied sued the city and school district for not meeting Act 12 requirements.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Borowski decided in favor of the mother, ruling that the city of Milwaukee and MPS are responsible for getting officers in schools by Feb. 17.
Impact on current officer shortage
NNS reported in December about hiring challenges within MPD as the number of new recruits wasn’t enough to offset the retirement and departure of other officers or potentially the new requirements of Act 12.
Leon Todd, executive director of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, said officers placed at MPS would come from the current ranks of the MPD, which could stretch the department’s already thin ranks.
“One of our top priorities is to grow the size of MPD, and we obviously want to limit the strain,” Todd said. “While these officers would be placed in MPS and wouldn’t be available to take other calls for service, the number of calls are going to be reduced as they won’t need to respond because they will already have officers in schools.”
According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, there were 40,643 calls to police from MPS-associated addresses from 2013 to 2024, although 7% of those calls were during nighttime hours.
The Fire and Police Commission is typically in charge of hiring all new officers. But because the school resource officers are going to be current officers, Todd said, the police chief or the department’s executive command staff will decide who is sent into schools.
Canady emphasized the importance of carefully selecting those officers.
“There should be input from the school community,” Canady said. “These should be officers who are veterans, who have been with the department at least three years, so we know something about their character. They should be officers who have shown sincere interest in working with youth.”
Leaders Igniting Transformation, a youth-led nonprofit in Milwaukee, doesn’t want officers back in schools at all.
“We are angry and terrified at the thought of placing armed police officers back in Milwaukee classrooms, who have shown time and time again that they are unfit to work with students and have no place in our schools,” a recent statement from the group said.
More than a year after ending its decade-long affiliation with the Milwaukee Education Partnership, Milwaukee Public Schools is still trying to recoup money from the organization for work it never performed.
MPS sent an invoice to Milwaukee Education Partnership on Dec. 19, 2023, for $64,170. The district sent four follow-up invoices to the organization before turning the matter over to Kohn Law Firm in May 2024, according to records obtained by WPR.
The school district is still awaiting payment from the now-defunct organization, which was led by Gerard Randall, a top Wisconsin GOP official who helped secure the Republican National Convention for Milwaukee.
Randall did not respond to requests for comment from WPR.
School board member Missy Zombor said the money Randall owes to MPS could be used to serve students.
“That’s potentially an educator in front of a student,” Zombor said. “I mean, $64,000 is not a small amount of money, so not being able to recoup those funds impacts students directly.”
During its relationship with MPS, Milwaukee Education Partnership received nearly $1.3 million in no-bid district contracts, promising to improve student achievement in the district.
In 2022, the partnership received $64,170. That money was for the group’s Milwaukee Connects program, which aims to “enhance the pipeline of graduates from Milwaukee to Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” according to the contract.
The contract required the partnership to provide 10 graduating MPS students with semester-long paid internships to include professional mentoring, housing and transportation between Oct. 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2023.
In an email exchange last year with WPR, Randall said “a cohort is being developed for the semester beginning January 2024.”
He would not answer further questions.
The students were never provided mentoring or internships, but Randall did receive the payment, according to documents obtained by WPR.
Milwaukee Education Partnership was also listing several high-profile officials in tax filings as board officers without their knowledge.
They included Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly, former Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Keith Posley, former Milwaukee Area Technical College President Vicki Martin and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone.
After being elected to the MPS board in 2023, Zombor began examining various MPS no-bid contracts. When she visited the Milwaukee Education Partnership website, she found it featured years-old financial reports and listed names of people no longer associated with the group.
Zombor began asking questions, which ultimately led to Posley suspending the district’s relationship with Milwaukee Education Partnership in November 2023.
Zombor says she would like MPS to explore its options for awarding contracts.
“It feels like this contract was potentially for a fictitious nonprofit,” Zombor said. “We have to trust that when vendors or partners come to MPS that they’re being honest about the services they provide. But I think we have to continue to enhance the accountability of the procurement process so that we can safeguard public money.”
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