Thornton reports progress on reforms

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) superintendent Gregory Thornton said this week he is making progress in making reforms in his first 100 working days on the job.
Thornton likened his mission to the theme of the book, “Who Moved My Cheese,” by author Spencer Johnson, who wrote about strategies for organizational and personal change.
“If we don’t move the cheese, the cheese is going to move us,” Thornton told a media panel that interviewed him this week at a Milwaukee Press Club Newsmaker Luncheon.
Thornton said he has had discussions with Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker about the future of MPS and its interaction with the incoming Walker administration.
“I have some optimism. I’m encouraged. He (Walker) is taking on a very big task,” Thornton said. “I think he’s where I am, that we can’t continue doing what we’re doing.”
Thornton added that MPS will need a “major overhaul” that will take “folk out of their comfort zone.”
Thornton said the district faces major changes in the ways it teaches and feeds children, in addition to decisions about school properties.
To help him initiate changes at MPS, Thornton has recruited Dense Callaway to be his coordinator of community and business partnerships. Callaway, whom Thornton described as a “No. 1 draft choice,” previously served as director of communications at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.
– BizTimes Milwaukee