A new PBS documentary chronicles the life and influence of Howard Fuller, the former Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent and voucher school champion whose decades of advocacy have shaped the city’s education system.
“I’m on a rescue mission,” Fuller says in the film’s opening. “Every generation must discover its mission and either fulfill it or betray it, and I feel like I have this mission to try to create better educational opportunities for young people.”
Not everyone may agree with how Fuller has sought to fulfill that mission, said Mike Gousha, one of the co-producers of “A Fuller Education.” But, he said, Fuller has always fought for what he believes in.
Fuller, 85, is well known in Milwaukee for his years leading MPS and as one of the early architects of the city’s private school voucher program, which became the nation’s first in 1990. He also taught at Marquette University and served in county and state government, including under former Democratic Gov. Tony Earl. But fewer people know the journey Fuller took before stepping into those roles and the experiences that shaped him, Gousha said.
The hour-long film traces Fuller’s long history of advocacy, starting with his childhood in Louisiana and the influences of his fiery mother and grandmother. It follows Fuller’s organizing efforts with the Black community in North Carolina and his founding of the independent Black college Malcolm X Liberation University in Durham during the 1960s to his leadership in Milwaukee’s civil rights protests in the 1980s.
“We wanted to show what formed him,” said Gousha, a Milwaukee journalist whose father was MPS superintendent from 1967 to 1974. “There are layers to Howard, but the consistency in whatever he’s done is that he has always been pushing for change. It’s just taken on different forms over the years.”
“A Fuller Education” premieres in southeastern Wisconsin at 9 p.m. Feb. 16 on Milwaukee PBS, Channel 10. The documentary, also available online at fullerfilm.org, will be aired on PBS stations nationwide over 800 times this month as part of the network’s Black History Month programming. The movie was co-produced by Aleta Mercer, Lynn Sprangers and Andrew Triplett – all former local journalists – and the Milwaukee-area film company Boettcher+Trinklein Television.
“A Fuller Education” will be broadcast statewide on PBS Wisconsin at 9 p.m. March 30.
Through interviews and archival footage, the film recounts how Fuller gained national prominence as an initial supporter of school vouchers and his current work as founder of the charter school network Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy. The film draws from Fuller’s 2014 memoir, “No Struggle, No Progress: A Warrior’s Life from Black Power to Education Reform,” and features a range of people with ties to Fuller, including Lisa Frazier Page, who co-wrote the book.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Fuller said he wanted viewers to understand his life story in his own words and to see the “sea of contradictions” that come with fighting for social justice.
“It’s how you negotiate those contradictions – that’s what’s important,” he said. “If you decide you want to wage struggle in this country, you’ve got to make real difficult decisions. You pay a personal price.”
For Fuller, that has meant creating alliances with people whom he disagrees with to improve educational options for poor Black youth by any means necessary. In the documentary, he shares how he befriended billionaire philanthropists and collaborated with George W. Bush on education reform.
Fuller also recalled how he was often at odds with the Milwaukee teachers union and MPS School Board as superintendent. Discouraged by his inability to create major change, Fuller resigned from the role in 1995 and dove deeper into education reform and voucher advocacy.
Gousha said the film comes as states have expanded voucher programs nationwide and as parental choice has become more prominent in education. In Wisconsin, about 59,600 students participate in the state’s choice programs, which subsidize the cost for lower-income students and students with disabilities to attend private schools using publicly funded vouchers.
Fuller said he was humbled that the filmmakers thought his life was worth documenting.
“It was a fair portrayal of what I’ve tried to do in my life,” he said. “It’s a blessing to live long enough to see what you’ve done over a period, both the ups and the downs.”
At 85, Fuller is still “very much in the fight” despite his frustrations with the pace of progress, Gousha said. “It’s his life’s work. He is still trying to make change.”
Kayla Huynh covers K-12 education, teachers and solutions for the Journal Sentinel. Contact: khuynh@gannett.com. Follow her on X: @_kaylahuynh.
Kayla’s reporting is supported by Herb Kohl Philanthropies and reader contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visit jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: PBS to premiere new documentary on Howard Fuller’s life, advocacy
Reporting by Kayla Huynh, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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