District suspends MPS teacher running for school board

A Milwaukee Public Schools teacher and school board candidate featured in an ad by a pro-school choice organization has been suspended without pay from her job at James Madison Academic Campus.

Aisha Carr, who teaches one of the district's new Black Lives Matter courses, said she was suspended Friday because of a paperwork infraction involving a field trip, but she suspects the move was politically motivated. She said she was supposed to return to work Thursday, but received an email telling her to stay home until further notice.

"This was a procedural error. I can't tell you how many times teachers do this," Carr said. "I think some people on the inside are not happy with me running" for the school board.

MPS spokeswoman Denise Callaway said she could not comment specifically about Carr because it is a confidential personnel matter.

"However, generally speaking," she said, "suspensions without pay are issued only after a serious violation of board policy or procedure has been substantiated."

Carr is one of two candidates — along with Jonatan Zuñiga in the 6th District — who are being touted by the nonprofit Leaders for a Better Community. The organization was created by political consultant and WNOV radio personality Sherwin Hughes, who has a history of supporting taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools and pumping so-called dark money into Democratic campaigns.

MPS sent a letter Monday demanding Zuñiga and Hughes remove Superintendent Darienne Driver from its Zuñiga ad, saying the superintendent does not endorse political candidates. The image remained as of Wednesday afternoon but is now gone.

Both Carr and Zuñiga said they had nothing to do with the ads, have no relationship with Hughes and are not voucher or school choice advocates.

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Both say they support quality schools, regardless of the sector, and believe all schools should be held to the same standards.

Carr and Zuniga also accepted about $4,000 each from the nonprofit Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce, which has supported vouchers and efforts to wrest control of poorly performing schools from MPS. Carr said hers was brokered through a friend whose only question was whether she supported Driver's reform efforts.

Carr has criticized voucher schools and appeared to oppose the privatization of public schools at a recent candidate forum.

"They pick and choose what children they take ... and they accept public funds and send kids back to MPS," when they cannot work with them, she said in an interview. "There is good and bad about the system."

Hughes, a self-employed consultant who previously worked for the school choice groups Democrats for Education Reform and Education Reform Now, has supported the expansion of the Milwaukee voucher program and the creation of vouchers for students with special needs.

Hughes hosts “The Forum" for the radio station WNOV 860-AM.

Leaders for a Better Community received federal nonprofit status last year, as a 501(c)(4). That means it can receive unlimited contributions and does not have to disclose its donors. It does have to disclose where it spends that money, but only once a year, on its IRS Form 990-N. And it has not yet filed one because it isn't due until later this year.

Carr's and Zuñiga's opponents — Annie Woodward and community activist Tony Baez — are supported by Wisconsin Working Families Party, an affiliate of the 501(c)(4), Working Families Organization, but it also operates a political action committee, which must disclose its donors.