MILWAUKEE – For the past few months, apologists for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) have been outspoken in their opposition to the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program, a county/state initiative designed to improve some of the city’s worst schools.

They call the program an attempted “takeover” of the schools – as if that would necessarily be a bad thing.

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Those apologists, including many members of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association (the local teachers union), have also consistently condemned private voucher schools and independent charter schools, which are not staffed by union teachers.

The insist that MPS is best for the city’s children, and should be able to keep all of the state funding attached to all the students.

Of course a lot of people disagree with that premise, including former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Alan Borsuk recently asked Duncan his thoughts about annual student test scores in Milwaukee, and Duncan replied that they are “a national disgrace.”

Borsuk responded by writing, “We would be wise to take this personally.”

He quoted a few startling statistics from recent state tests applied to students in grades 3-8, as well as high school juniors.

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Only 27 percent of MPS third- through eighth-graders tested proficient or advanced in reading. In math only 17 percent made the grade, according to Borsuk.

Only 22 percent of MPS 11^th graders were advanced or proficient in their overall scores.

Borsuk offers several suggestions for improving MPS, including addressing the quality of classroom teachers thought higher standards and better compensation.

“It involves making teaching attractive and rewarding instead of the beat-down profession it is in so many places in Milwaukee and Wisconsin,” he wrote. “With that would come higher expectations of classroom success.”

Borsuk also offers a model for state and local officials to follow, if they are serious about improving MPS – the public school system in Washington, D.C.

“The educational picture was bleak in the mid-2000s,” he wrote. “Michelle Rhee was named chancellor in 2007 and became notorious for her no-prisoners approach to big changes. She left in 2010, but her successor, Kaya Henderson, has pursued similar policies, including strong steps to improve the overall quality of teaching (such as paying top teachers top money and ushering out ones who aren’t good at the work).

“Henderson is far more adept than Rhee at dealing with people. Washington is on its third consecutive mayor who has actively supported improvements. And the business and civic communities have been strong in their support. The result? Things are getting better.”

Of course, rewarding the best teachers and dumping the worst conflicts with the fundamental philosophy of the still very influential MTEA, which remains glued to the concepts of pay scales and layoffs based largely on seniority.

Yet the MTEA also shrieks with anger at the steady loss of students to voucher and charter schools.

Until the situation brightens at MPS, the student migration will continue, and MPS will have fewer jobs for union teachers – no matter how loudly they protest against efforts to offer families something better.