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Author Perlstein remembers growing up Jewish in Milwaukee

By Andrea Waxman
of The Chronicle staff

September 28th, 2007

Milwaukee native Linda Perlstein made an appearance at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop in Shorewood on Wednesday, Sept. 26, where she read from and signed her new book “Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade,” on Wednesday, Sept. 26.

In “Tested,” Perlstein reveals what she learned firsthand about how the testing movement has affected students, teachers and school administrators, during the year she spent inside Tyler Heights Elementary School in Annapolis, Md.

A 1992 graduate of Wesleyan University, Perlstein earned a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University in 1994. After 10 years reporting on education and children for The Washington Post, she is now freelancing. “Tested” is her second book; the first “Not Much Just Chillin,’” about life in an American middle school, was published in 2005.

The Chronicle spoke with Perlstein by telephone from her home in Baltimore before her arrival in Milwaukee.

WJC: Tell me about growing up in Milwaukee.
Perlstein: [I lived in] Bayside until I was two, but I grew up in Fox Point. I went to Nicolet [High School], Maple Dale, Indian Hill — Dunwood for first grade. My parents moved to Mequon when I was a senior in high school.

I have three brothers, Steve, Rick and Ben, and I’m the third [of the four children]. I grew up at Congregation Emanu-El [B’ne Jeshurun], back when it was in the right place [on Kenwood Ave.]. We knew every nook and cranny of that building and it makes me sad to think of it being used for another purpose. I also went to Camp Interlaken for several years.

WJC: Tell me about your educational experiences here.
Perlstein: I remember my parents had to go to court because they wanted me to skip a grade, K4 — I could read already — and Dunwood School wouldn’t let me, so I went right into K5 at Indian Hill even though I didn’t live in that [school] district. I went to Indian Hill and then Maple Dale and I really liked them both. I was in student council and was a cheerleader at Maple Dale and I remember all of us getting on the bus to go downtown to Hebrew school every Monday and Wednesday. Looking back, I know we were getting a really good education. I really enjoyed school — well, in high school there were things I liked and things I didn’t like so much.

WJC: How do you feel about Milwaukee and what connections, if any do you still have with the community?
Perlstein: When I came out east it became clear to me that I grew up in a very segregated city. That’s not something [Milwaukee] should be proud of. There is a certain fear of poor and minority people among the [white] middle class [there].

But [the poor and minorities] are the people who are now my friends, who I care about, and I had no interaction with them when I was growing up. There were [Chapter] 220 students [the voluntary student transfer program that aims to racially integrate schools by allowing minority students to attend suburban districts that participate in the program] but in the higher track classes there weren’t enough of them.

I remember coming home for a visit from New York and saying to someone, ‘There is more diversity in my building than there is in the entire city of Milwaukee.’ And that person’s response was, ‘And that’s a good thing?’

I liked the freedom I had in my childhood. I liked the opportunities my parents gave me and the nice community I grew up in.

Now, in Milwaukee, I have an aunt and uncle and their two grown children and a great aunt living in Chai Point [Senior Living Apartment Complex]. I do get to Milwaukee about once a year. Other than that, I don’t feel too connected.

On the East Coast things are not perfect, but to be frank, in other cities African Americans have more power. They actually run things in many cities.

WJC: How does being Jewish inform your views on education?
Perlstein: There’s a sort of basic assumption in Jewish families that education is important and there’s an active understanding of what that means.

There is a certain amount of respect I learned from having to show up in synagogue not in jeans. There were some things that just were not negotiable. I’m not a religious person; in fact I’m actively not a religious person, but I am Jewish in [some secular ways], such as social responsibility, the importance of food and family gatherings, an awareness of what’s going on in the world and no matter what we did with our money, we had to save a quarter for the tzedakah box at Sunday school. These are things I learned growing up being Jewish in Milwaukee.