Yesterday, I connected with Amy Mizialko and Judy Gundry, two MPS veterans, who work as district mentors and are on their way to the SOS March in Washington, D.C., this week.
Mizialko and Gundry will send back dispatches from the event, which I'll post here in my blog.
Mizialko, as I wrote yesterday, is among the speakers at the national event.
"I am speaking as a rank and file teacher at the rally at The Ellipse on Saturday which begins at 12 p.m. Following the rally/speeches, we will march to the White House with our list of demands. I will have three minutes to speak and will share the stage with Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, Matt Damon and many others."
Mizialko says she's still working on her speech and will send a copy when it's done. With her OK, I'll post it here so you won't miss out if you didn't make it to Madison.
In addition to the march, Mizialko will co-lead a workshop during the trip out east.
"I will be at American University on Thursday and Friday with 800 registrants who have traveled here from across the U.S.," says Mizialko. "My colleagues Amy Daroszeski and Judy Gundry will be joining me on Friday at our workshop which focuses on grassroots, rank and file teacher organizing."
Mizialko says the event is an important one and that's why she and her colleagues are making the trip.
"The fight for public education really is a life and death matter for the children of Milwaukee," she says.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
