
Proponents of a new charter school in Madison will hold a public information session Monday to inform the community of their plans.
The meeting will take place at 6 pm at the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Doyle Administation Building, 545 W. Dayton Street.
The Forward Career and College Academy would be a new high school in Madison, eventually serving as many as 600 students. The school’s curriculum is still being developed but would center around skilled trades with components of financial literacy, civic engagement, and wellness aspects also being provided.
Local developer and philanthropist John McKenzie is helping fund and propose the charter school, and has already invested more than $500,000 in the venture, according to Boys and Girls Club of Dane County (BGCDC) CEO Michael Johnson.
McKenzie’s plan is to open the school in Fall 2026 with 150 ninth graders. Each year, 150 ninth-grade students would join the school until the enrollment reached 600.
The Academy would be closely associated with the McKenzie Regional Workforce Center, located at 5215 Verona Road. The Workforce Center, which opened in 2023 thanks to a major donation from McKenzie, is owned and operated by BGCDC and houses programs that teach kids skilled trades such as plumbing, electrical and construction.
McKenzie believes a scholastic version of the Workforce Center is vital to addressing educational gaps in Madison.
“A lot of kids who are underperforming at school are coming to the Workforce Center,” McKenzie said. “They are out there to be reached and we want to expose them to careers. We’re also focusing on financial literacy because we’ve got a racial wealth gap.”
McKenzie hopes the charter school will be part of the Madison Metropolitan School District. In December, he submitted an application for a charter from MMSD and said the academy would provide workforce development at a scale not seen in Madison’s school district.
McKenzie also submitted a proposal to be chartered through UW’s Office of Educational Opportunity.
If granted a charter by MMSD, the school would be part of the school district and absorbed into the district’s budget. If chartered by UW, the school’s per-pupil allocation of state funding would be taken away from the district.
“We’re focusing on soft skills so they can integrate into the workforce,” McKenzie said. “According to the DPI report, MMSD only has 23 kids in internship programs. So, we want to pour out resources of mentors and guidance counselors and really get these kids to embrace the idea of getting involved.”
Madison’s school board plans to vote on the charter school in February. School Board treasurer Ali Muldrow said the January 27 information session is key to the board’s vote.
“That’s going to be so important for the board to hear our community, ask questions and see if this aligns with the needs of the district,” Muldrow said.
Does Madison need another school?
Muldrow is concerned that simply building another school is not going to address gaps in education, particularly for Black students.
“I think the biggest concern from board members is the school has some duplicative programming,” Muldrow said. “It’s also trying to be a very large school at the secondary level. We haven’t seen any charter school be this size.”
Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, serves as vice president of the Forward Career and College Academy’s board of directors. Johnson believes the school is vital to giving students who might not be cut out for college a second option.
“The focus is to build a workforce high school,” Johnson said. “There is not a comprehensive curriculum around pathways to careers in MMSD. The McKenzies wanted to respond to that. The end result will be hundreds of kids getting into careers.”
One City Schools is a local charter school that recently attempted to expand to provide high school education but wound up having to eliminate its secondary programming.
One City founder Kaleem Caire said the McKenzies sought him out for advice about how to form a charter school. Caire said he doesn’t believe they have any idea how difficult forming a new charter will be.
“Anyone who gets into this needs to know this is serious business,” Caire said. “I told John it’s a noble idea, but are we educating kids to be you? Or to just get a job? We need to educate students to become a developer,” not just the laborers building the developments, Caire said.
Caire said resources need to be devoted to systemic change in education so that Black and brown kids can be power brokers in the world of science and technology, “not just picking up a shovel.”
“We have to make education better overall and we have to challenge the state to do more than just help schools, but to reinvent them,” Caire said.
McKenzie said that’s his purpose.
“First of all, any change in Madison is difficult,” McKenzie said. “There’s going to be controversy with any change. It’s something we anticipated and the reactions we’ve had so far are from a small group of people who are, for whatever reason, focused on things other than what our core curriculum is about.”
Race and Controversy
Controversy is already swirling around the charter school’s potential impact on Black students.
McKenzie has left no question that one of the goals and focuses of the proposed school is to address gaps in Black students’ access to workforce training, financial literacy, mental and physical health, and ability to retain living-wage jobs.
“The statistics are pretty dismal,” McKenzie said. “About 50% of Black kids are chronically absent right now. About 10% of kids living in poverty are proficient in reading and math, and it’s about 5% for Black kids. … We want to help them build wealth and be productive citizens. It’s about reaching out and helping people see the opportunities.”
Muldrow’s ears perk up whenever she hears people address the state of Black students in MMSD.

“I think there is a frustration that our schools are not meeting the needs of children of color, and I think that means predatory people can show up and say ‘We’re the solution,’ and people want them to be the solution,” Muldrow said.
In December, McKenzie and members of FCCA’s board held a feedback session with some community leaders.
Leland Pan, a former Dane County Supervisor and a school social worker at Madison La Follette High School, attended that session. Pan is especially concerned with the presence of Paul Vallas as a chief consultant for McKenzie in the development of the charter school.
Vallas has helped schools privatize all over the country, but Pan said Vallas has a history of dog-whistle campaigns, removing Black educators, going after homeless students and costing taxpayers in Chicago and Philadelphia millions of dollars.
“Why has John McKenzie partnered with such a racist, right-wing player?” Pan wrote to Madison365.
Michael Johnson said Pan’s characterization of Vallas is ridiculous.
“I worked for Vallas in both Philadelphia and Chicago,” Johnson said. “He’s not a racist.”
Johnson pointed out that several members of FCCA’s board of directors including himself, Dr. Christina Outlay, Corinda Rainey-Moore and Aaron Perry are Black community leaders committed to ensuring the charter school benefits students of color.
McKenzie said the charter school will “change the narrative” and the blowback – especially regarding race – is simply a distraction.
“Look at what I’m all about,” McKenzie said. “Look at my philanthropic energy. It’s primarily to help young people of color. What really hurts is when I see these same people going after folks like Michael Johnson, going after their own people and insulting him. That’s real racism. None of those people have made an effort to see what we’re all about.”
But skeptics remain, amplifying the need for McKenzie and FCCA’s board to knock it out of the ballpark during the January 27 public information session. Central to the presentation will be the intersection between students of color and the heavy emphasis on learning skilled trades.
“There’s complexity saying Black kids don’t need to be intellectual but need a ‘job,’” Muldrow said. “That they need to be compliant workers. There’s a specific role we want for our Black kids in our society and I have a problem with that.”