Susan Phillips was like a whirlwind that dropped out of the sky full of promise and pledges of big, big change.

When she disappeared into another burst of wind, nothing had changed. Nothing.

Let me explain.

Almost three decades ago, I was intimately involved in efforts to improve the performance of students in the Milwaukee Public Schools.

I operated at the highest levels of the reform efforts under Superintendent Robert Peterkin and several forward-thinking members of the school board.

One of the key elements of any reform plan was to involve the Milwaukee community. MPS needed money, expertise and human capital to make things work better for students.

Enter Susan Phillips, the point person designated by the Greater Milwaukee Committee – an organization of movers and shakers, most of whom were white and lived outside the city, but who pledged to support MPS however they could.

We had meetings organized by Phillips. Did we ever have meetings! Phillips pulled groups of power brokers to the table to meet with MPS officials to develop ideas and plans to make them work. These were big-time guys, like Tom Hefty, who was the president of Blue Cross of Wisconsin.

I crossed swords with Hefty occasionally because I thought it might be helpful to have his organization commit human resources for mentoring programs and money to support advanced training opportunities for teachers.

But almost as suddenly as Phillips arrived, she was gone. The ideas disappeared. Hefty was reduced to such a petty level of politics that he demanded I be fired in exchange for his support of Dr. Howard Fuller as the new superintendent to replace Peterkin. Fuller did fire me. 

All of this is to provide some perspective to the statement from former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that the Milwaukee Public Schools are a "national disgrace."

Jay Bullock, a colleague and teacher in MPS, responded to Duncan’s column with the kind of predictable disdain that is so damaging to real fundamental reform.

Bullock’s column blamed the state of MPS on different tests, too much testing, charter and voucher schools, shrinking school budgets and a general lack of support.

In the current Greater Milwaukee Committee website, they say this: "By the mid-1980s, the GMC began taking on more complex social issues such as education and inner city development. These projects are less visible, but their impact in the community is equally dramatic."

All of this is just to say that Duncan is absolutely right when he calls the Milwaukee Public Schools a "national disgrace."

I’m not saying that people aren’t trying. Most teachers work like devils, many without support from lousy principals. The GMC has programs to enable high-achieving black high school students to go to college.

But holy cow, about 80 percent of the black students in third grade in MPS are not proficient in reading or math. Think about these kids. They aren’t going to get better as they get older. They are going to get worse or drop out.

It’s all well and good to reward the hard-workers who are poor and need help to keep going. But somewhere along the line, we have to focus on the most troubled of our children.

As an example, look at the recent spate of carjacking incidents in Milwaukee, many of them featuring teenagers – some as young as 13 – as the culprits. You can’t tell me that their failure to get a good education doesn’t have something to do with that.

There is such a long list of little failures for reform that it boggles the mind.

For example, the big selling point for voucher schools was that the competition would make MPS better. That’s not even close. Voucher schools have taken funds away from MPS with what can generously be called mixed results.

Sure, the schools need more money. Sure, the kids don’t get the kind of support they need at home. Sure, poverty plays a role. Sure, the school board needs to stop being so protective of their elective seats and be willing to try outrageous ideas. 

And we certainly need a mayor who is not almost disgustingly silent about what is happening to so many of the children in his city. He may not have legal authority, but he has a moral responsibility to rattle cages and rally the troops. 

But we can’t change all of those conditions right away. What we can change is what happens inside the classroom.

If the Greater Milwaukee Committee wants to do something truly meaningful, let’s give a leave of absence to a mid- or high-level executive and have them sit with principals to help them learn how to run an organization.

Over 30 years, I have become convinced that the single, most important thing in any school building is a great principal. Milwaukee has some, like Jennifer Doucette at Cooper School and Joe DiCarlo at Maryland Montessori.

One overwhelming fact is that until MPS gets an outstanding and dedicated principal in every building, the school system is likely to continue to be a "national disgrace."