Administrators give update on collaborative effort to get MPS students to go to college in M-Cubed program

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- A program with the goal of getting students ready for college has had a positive impact on Milwaukee Public School graduates. MPS provided an update on the "M-Cubed" program Wednesday morning.

M-Cubed is a collaborative effort between MPS, MATC and UW-M. The schools have been working in teams to create smooth transitions for students as they go from one school to another. Leaders say since the program began the number of MPS students who graduate high school has gone up from 58 to 62 percent. The number of MPS students enrolling in college has also gone up from 42 to 46 percent.

Despite the progress, one education leader said college retention could improve the number of MPS students who continued college at MATC after a year dipped from 49 to 44 percent. The number of MPS students who continued college at UW-M after a year stayed stagnant at 65 percent.

"At that time many of you said why haven't we been doing this collaborative work before? Why haven't we been looking at curriculum alignment? Why haven't we been looking at how teachers can learn effectively so much more when they work together and I've often said whenever we get our facility together, whenever we get our administrators together, whenever we get our leaders, thought leaders and other leaders together only good things can happen," said UW-M Chancellor Mark Mone.

Leaders say they have target goals to improve all of those numbers significantly for the 2019-2020 school year.