Frederica Freyberg:
But first controversy boils over who should run Milwaukee Public Schools. Mayor Tom Barrett says the time has come for him to take over the failing MPS. He joins us from Milwaukee. Thanks very much for doing so.

Tom Barrett:
It's great to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:
First of course I should ask how is your recovery going following being beaten outside the State Fair?

Tom Barrett:
We're coming along. We're making progress. I just got some more stitches out of my hair this morning. I'm going to get a couple new teeth. I've gotten a couple new teeth already. The hand is the area we're most worried about, I was getting some therapy this morning, but we're coming along. I'm not going to be throwing anybody out from center field anytime, but I think we're making progress.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, you look very good, and of course you have been vaulted into hero status at the networks, people are calling you a hero mayor, but a hero, period, and suggesting that this really puts you in a very good place politically to run for governor. What are your intentions in that regard?

Tom Barrett:
Well, obviously I didn't get involved in any of this stuff for political reasons, and I have to say I absolutely love being the mayor of the city of Milwaukee. This is a wonderful, wonderful honor and opportunity for me to be mayor of Milwaukee. Having said that, I am also flattered, obviously, by the comments I'm hearing from around the state. Right now my attentions are just healing myself and in the next couple weeks, next month, I have to really get myself health-wise back to 100 percent. I'm not there yet, we're making progress, but we're not there yet. We've got the budget to do. And, as we'll talk about in a minute, this controversy over the Milwaukee Public Schools, that's taking up a lot of our time too. So that's what I'm concentrating on right now. But I haven't ruled it out. It's a very public decision that I will make, but it will follow a very private conversation that I'll have with my wife and my children.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Let's move along then to the governance of MPS. It's a controversial move, and it's being called a mayoral takeover. Why could you do better than an elected school board?

Tom Barrett:
Well, let me just start by saying I'm not a johnny-come-lately when it comes to education. In Congress I worked on a community learning issue, as mayor, where we're working on a summer job program, we're working with teen pregnancy, the Fatherhood Initiative. I've been involved in education for a long time. But that's not really the point. Right now we have an unprecedented opportunity with the federal government to get additional resources to Milwaukee and to the Milwaukee Public Schools. President Obama has essentially given Secretary Duncan $5 billion to distribute among states and municipalities around the country, those he sees as having the best potential for making dramatic improvements. So he has that ability to allocate those dollars. At the same time, Secretary Duncan is the major proponent for mayoral control of schools in this
nation. It's clear from every person I've talked to who's looked at this at the national level that if we are going to be able to secure additional resources for our children — and at the end of the day, that's what this is about. We're hearing all this talk about politics and who controls. But what I want to see is I want to see some dramatic improvements in MPS. Right now if you look at those kids in 10th grade, who scored at advanced and proficient, it's 38 percent at reading and only 27 percent for math. And from my standpoint as the mayor of this city, the future of the city of Milwaukee is inextricably linked with the future of the Milwaukee public schools. And so there's a lot here at stake for the city and the future of the city.

Frederica Freyberg:
Excuse me, Mayor, but I do believe that the Milwaukee School Board president says that actually you would not have to take over MPS to be eligible for this so-called "race to the top" money from the federal government.  

Tom Barrett:
Anybody can be eligible in the sense that anybody can put in an application. But you can bet that around the country states and municipalities are trying to position themselves to get these dollars. It was no coincidence that the same day, the exact same day that Gov. Doyle and I and Superintendent Evers voiced our support for this measure, the mayor of Detroit, Mayor Bing, and the governor of Michigan, Governor Granholm, said the exact same thing about Detroit vis-à-vis Michigan. So what you're seeing nationally is you're seeing an alignment, and you're seeing some municipalities and some states who understand the direction that Secretary Dunkin and President Obama are going in terms of dramatic improvements. Then you're saying others who are saying, we're not going to upset anything. From a political standpoint the easiest thing for me to do would be to walk away from this. I know it's a fight. But I can't look at those numbers, those
achievement numbers for the kids in the Milwaukee public schools and say, I'm going to do everything I can to preserve the status quo. Even people who disagree with me on this issue, I've yet to hear one say, ‘let's just stay the course.’ Because if you look at the numbers, Wisconsin now has the largest racial achievement gap in the country. We're worst than Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi. And to have me or the governor sit back and say, well, let's just let everything sort of ride as it's going, I think would be really abdicating our responsibilities. So that's why I feel so passionately that we have to do this. Do I think Tom Barrett is the key to this? No. I think the key to this is having accountability through the mayor's office, whoever the mayor is, so that you can
make those decisions. And you hear this argument, well, we're taking away rights to vote or democracy. The mayor's elected by far more people than those who elect the members of the school board.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, those opposed to this frame, or those opposed to you taking over the Milwaukee Public Schools frame this as "motivated by race." What is your reaction to that?

Tom Barrett:
I think the racist thing to do would be for the white mayor to say, ‘not my problem.’ I have four kids. This fall my fourth child will start the 27th year that we've had kids in Milwaukee Public Schools. So I'm someone who understands you have to have a school system that works. But my kids are going to get a good education. So in a very selfish way, I don't have to worry about this. But I look at this district, it's a majority of children of color, and I'm thinking we're failing them. And to say — again, these cries of racism, keep in mind that it's President Barack Obama's Secretary of Education who's a major proponent of this in the country. When I talked about Dave Bing before in Detroit, he's an African American mayor. Adrian in Washington D.C., an African American mayor. In Detroit, in Washington are talking the exact same thing. One mayor has done it. To me, that's the most outlandish claim of any of them.

Frederica Freyberg:
We're about to speak with the Milwaukee School Board president. What would you say to him?

Tom Barrett:
What I would say — and I have great respect for President Bonds. I think he's committed. I think he believes in the children and I think he's doing everything he can. But we have to do more. And this is the unprecedented opportunity we have had in this generation to get help from the federal government. We're stuck obviously at the bottom of the heap right now in terms of achievement. We have to make this change. We have to make this change to allow us to get resources for our children, all of our children, so we can have longer school days for those kids who need it, so we can have a longer school year for those kids who need it, so we can have more intensive training so the kids in this community with compete in a world economy.

Frederica Freyberg:
Thank you very much for joining us.

Tom Barrett:
Thank you very much.