Causes: Philanthropy, Public Foundations

Mission: To promote educational excellence and strenghten community participation in the milwaukee public schools

Programs: The integrated data evaluation and action system (ideas) for children - has the opportunity to help improve educational, social and economic outcomes for this generation of children. By working with other data-collecting agencies, milwaukee public schools can help create a blueprint that identifies opportunities for success and addresses deficits before they become failures. Ideas is an integrated data system for research and evaluation to improve public health, social, and educational services for children and youth. Ideas can serves as a roadmap that helps chart success for students and families. By creating a shared set of data from other data-collecting agencies that produces quality information that helps leaders make informed, strategic decisions around public policy involving children and their families. The data helps local officials determine what courses of intervention are successful, with what populations, and identifies what needs to be modified or changed to increase the chance of success.

the four-in-one collaborative is an effort by northwestern mutual foundation, city year, schools that can milwaukee, teach for america and mps to improve academic outcomes at mps' george washington carver academy of mathematics and science. Northwestern mutual foundation provides funding to support academic and behavior interventions designed to create a more focused and positive learning environment.

the council of the great city schools is a national organization for large urban school districts. Milwaukee is one of 67 member districts. Annually, cgcs has a national conference for representatives of those 67 member districts. In 2014, milwaukee was the host of this 58th annual fall conference of nearly 1,000 superintendents, school board members and educators. Over the course of five days, these professionals tackled the challenges of urban public schools head on, shared best practices, and rallied around the theme of fresh water, fresh thinking in urban education. As the host district, milwaukee public schools, through the mps foundation, raised funds in private support to ensure the success of the conference.