The City of Milwaukee's first foray into charter schools at the high school level isn't exactly turning into a Harvard-style experience. In its annual report, the city's Charter School Review Committee blames a lack of financial accountability and staff problems for slow educational progress on behalf of the students at the Maasai Institute, 4744 N. 39th St.

The city is allowed to run charter schools, which essentially allows certain private schools to get public funding in order to compete with the Milwaukee Public School system.

The city committee noted the institute filed its financial information late, "due to its internal control deficiencies," and said the school was not in financial compliance with the terms of its contract with the city. It recommended that the school, "completely reorganize its internal control policies and procedures" and suggested that closer monitoring is needed.

It's the city's first contract with a school that strictly deals with high school-age students and one of the excuses offered by Maasai management is that teaching high school is more complicated.

"I am gravely concerned," said Ald. Joe Davis of the news.

"We can ill-afford compromise in educating our young people," concurred Ald. Willie Hines.

Aldermen nonetheless took no action to sanction the school.

Walking on Water: I've long wondered why the city's famed Riverwalk ended in a mess of rubble at the Brewers Point Apartments, 1858 N. Commerce St., near the site of the old Trostel Tannery. It's an obvious gap in the system. Turns out it was because the property owner wouldn't ante up to help pay for the strolling platform, which, as other riverside property owners have found, ultimately adds to the property values.

The dispute over who's paying what to build the thing has been going on since 1996. But now there appears to be a parting of the seas. A deal before the city's Redevelopment Authority has the city putting up $292,441.26 and the property owner chipping in $62,550.74 to get the walk built.

View From the Suburbs: Don Pridemore has a lofty view of solving racial disparity in incarceration rates in our fair state. Given the Republican is from Hartford, one could also accuse his view as being a tad simplistic as well.

In response to the governor's commission on racial disparity, Pridemore says that higher incarceration rates for African-American males starts with the family.

"There is one underlying fact that overrides all others: in Milwaukee, 82 percent of African-American babies are born without a father listed on the birth certificate," says Pridemore from his perch in the suburbs.

He goes on to claim that African-American children with two parents do not live in poverty.

"Rather than focusing on the dubious concept of unconscious racism or a statistical disparity in the number of persons who commit crimes, let's focus on why these problems may occur," he says. "After we work to preserve the traditional family structure, then these other symptoms -- such as a statistical disparity in the incarceration rate -- will decrease. How can we reduce racial disparity in the Wisconsin justice system? By reducing the 'marriage disparity' in every race."

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