MILWAUKEE: Today, Congresswoman Gwen Moore announced her endorsement of Bob Peterson for the citywide seat on the Milwaukee Public Schools Board of Directors. Congresswoman Moore is the most recent addition to a growing list of public officials and community and educational leaders voicing support for Peterson’s candidacy.
Congresswoman Moore released this statement:


Bob Peterson has the experience and vision we need for our public schools. I am proud to endorse him as our next citywide school board director for MPS.
The children and families of MPS deserve a school board that will always put the interests of our communities first. For more than 30 years, Bob Peterson has walked that talk.


Bob is a veteran MPS teacher who first worked as a paraprofessional in a special program to ease racial tensions in schools during the court-ordered school desegregation in the late 1970s. He co-founded La Escuela Fratney, an MPS K-5 school that was the first two-way bilingual school in Wisconsin. He was Wisconsin’s Elementary Teacher of the Year in 1995. He was a co-founder of the Coalition to Stop the MPS Takeover and Schools and Communities United. He served as president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association from 2011-2015. He is a founding editor of the Milwaukee-based magazine Rethinking Schools, known internationally for its commitment to quality classroom teaching and educational opportunity for all.
Bob has worked tirelessly as an advocate for public education and social justice. I am honored to endorse him.


The election for the Milwaukee Board of School Directors is April 2, 2019, with a possible primary February 19.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JUNE 5, 2018
CONTACT: Bob Peterson 
Email: BobForMPS@gmail.com • Cell: 414-604-6125

BOB PETERSON ANNOUNCES CANDIDACY FOR MPS BOARD OF SCHOOL DIRECTORS
Experienced public educator committed to ensuring that all Milwaukee children are successful

MILWAUKEE: Long-time community activist and public school educator Bob Peterson today filed to run for the citywide seat on the MPS Board of School Directors.
Peterson started working in MPS as a paraprofessional in 1977 during the court-ordered school desegregation and soon after became a teacher. 

By Bob Peterson (This article was published in the 2018 summer issue of Rethinking Schools)

“I’m from Wisconsin, I’m from your future!” I start off my speech. Despite my love of science fiction, I’m not talking to sci-fi fans. I’m talking to teacher and other public sector activists at a conference in New York City on the future of labor and public institutions.  
“My future, your future,” I continue, “started when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dropped the bomb in 2011 with an unprecedented attack on teachers, their unions, and the public’s schools.” A few months earlier, Walker had been elected governor during the 2010 Republican sweep of statehouses across the nation, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision enabled the 1 percent to tighten their stranglehold on many state and federal elected offices. 

​By Bob Peterson  (Published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 15, 2015)
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During my 30 years of teaching fifth grade, I've always encouraged my students to look critically at problems and to learn from mistakes. Sen. Alberta Darling's and Rep. Dale Kooyenga's plan to take over public schools in Milwaukee does neither.
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The few details in their plan provide no framework for actually improving academic achievement. Equally important, the plan ignores the Milwaukee community's experience with similar efforts to dismantle our public schools and undermine our democratic institutions.

​There are several glaring problems with the Darling-Kooyenga plan.

By Bob Peterson (Published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 2, 2014)

There is an inherent link between strong public schools, healthy communities, and a vibrant democracy. In Milwaukee, all are endangered.

We cannot rebuild our Milwaukee Public Schools without rebuilding our neighborhoods.
Our public schools, in turn, are essential to that rebuilding. But only if we preserve our schools as democratic institutions connected to the community.

Long before the powers-that-be abandoned our public schools, they abandoned our communities. It is time to call a halt to the politics of abandonment.

For more than a quarter century, what has been the status quo in Milwaukee? Ignoring segregation. Standing by while job growth bypasses the city and is centered in the suburbs. Living in denial about the need for regional mass transit. Taking money away from public schools and funneling tax dollars into private voucher schools and privately run charter schools. The list could go on.