A report issued in June by education experts at Johns Hopkins University hit Rhode Island like lightning. The diagnosis was gruesome; the smallest state’s biggest city’s schools were described as some of the nation’s worst.
After this bleak assessment, the state decided to assume control of the city’s schools. The takeover of the 24,000-student district is unprecedented in Rhode Island’s modern history. There is no blueprint for the state running such a large district.
There are so many complications in this effort that it’s hard to grasp some basic themes. But it’s clear that the overriding issue is: How does the state measure improvement and, ultimately, success? And can the education bureaucrats, the governor and the General Assembly summon the urgency to make big changes?
All you need to know about the status of Providence schools was the statement by the new education commissioner, Angelica Infante-Green. She said she wouldn’t send her children to any city school.
This isn’t the first time an outside panel skewered Providence schools. A 1993 report found similar problems in the schools, including lousy test scores, little parent involvement and neglect of the needs of minority students. Two years ago, the Donald Trump Administration’s Department of Justice found that the city schools were seriously shortchanging students whose first language wasn’t English.
This in a district where 60 percent of students hail from homes where English isn’t the primary language.
This campaign is thick with interests groups: parents, students, the teachers union, the charter schools, and, of course the politicians.
It would be helpful if the Assembly could grow a collective spine and finally decide what the role of charters should be. The teacher union has a historic disdain of charters. Now school committees around the state are becoming fed up with the way charters are draining money from traditional schools. State and local aid money follows the student, meaning that every charter student takes thousands of dollars out of the hands of regular public schools. In Providence, that’s about $18,000 per student.
Charters were originally conceived as experimental schools where new ideas could be tried. If effective, the thinking went, these new methods could be transferred to regular schools. That hasn’t happened. What’s evolved is a two-tier system. The charters teach children whose parents are motivated to get them a better education, which is laudable. Schools in Central Falls, the state’s poorest city, have long been run by the state. Now about 40 percent of the students are in charters.
But the charters don’t have to educate everyone. They can give bad actors the boot. And they don’t –for the most part–educate high-cost special education students. This leaves traditional schools with more challenging student bodies.
In successful public school districts around the state, parents aren’t seeking charters. “Nobody in Barrington or East Greenwich wants charters,” says Tim Duffy, executive director of the school committee association.
The charters have a strong Statehouse lobby. As long as they are allowed to expand, state money will be siphoned from traditional schools.
Another element here is the usual blame game. Teacher unions are an easy scapegoat. It’s true that some of the union work and seniority rules make reforms difficult. And there are legacy money issues. Former Providence city council member Sam Zurier estimates that the city could give every teacher a $2,500 raise if it didn’t have to fund Medigap health insurance for retirees.
Yet, Massachusetts has the nation’s best public schools. Their teachers belong to the same unions as Rhode Island’s.
But the biggest hurdle is figuring out what equals victory. Expect a blizzard of statistics and p.r. spin from the takeover team. Some of this may be reliable, such as data on combating truancy and fixing the crumbling buildings.
Others will be more elusive. Beware of politicians and bureaucrats boasting of short-term improvements in test scores. The scores are going to naturally increase as students and teachers become more familiar with them.
The larger metric is time. This mess can’t be fixed in the term of one governor, mayor or lawmaker. To anyone who says it can, well, tell them you’ll send them a Benny’s gift card.
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday morning at 6:45 and 8:45 and at 5:44 in the afternoon.
