Three cheers for parenthood!
Some of you may know that I’ve been on maternity leave for the last three months, after the birth of my first child.
In fact, anyone listening to Rhode Island Public Radio on July 4th might have even heard a news item announcing the birth of Luna Charlotte Smick earlier that morning.
So, now I’m back in the office, and I’ve been thinking a lot about this experience and how it’s already changed my life. Of course there’s the adjustment to the new role of being a mom, and the wondering about whether I will ever again get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. But there’s also the question of education.
Luna is ready for back-to-school season with this jaunty hat.
It will probably come as no surprise that I have already fielded questions about what preschool I plan to send my daughter to (that started just six months into my pregnancy), and whether I plan to move away from Providence because of the public schools (I have no idea, I thought I had a few years before I had to start worrying about that!).
Is this a common experience for Rhode Islanders? When did you choose a preschool? Was it hard to get into the school of your choice? What about Kindergarten? Did you move from one community to another to find better schools?
How students are learning in school without computers
While schools around the state look for ways to increase their use of technology, some parents are paying thousands of dollars to send their children to a private school with no computers in the classroom at all.
The Meadowbrook Waldorf School inWest Kingstonis part of a network of more than 1,000 Waldorf schools around the globe. Listen to Rhode Island Public Radio’s education reporter Elisabeth Harrison’s conversation with teacher Amy Rippe on why these schools think technology should take a back seat.
Vote on student loans expected today
The House and Senate are poised to approve a compromise today that would keep student loan rates from rising. Members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation tell RIPR they expect the measure to pass both the House and Senate.
The deal stops interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans from doubling. The current rate of 3.4 percent will increase to 6.8 percent on Sunday if the measure does not go through.
Under the plan, the cost of extending the lower rate — some $6 billion — will be covered by an increase in federal pension insurance premiums. Senate leaders brokered the bi-partisan compromise at the last minute, after bickering over how to pay for the plan stopped an earlier effort.
The agreement will only halt the increase in student loan interest rates for another year, so the issue is likely to rear its head again in 2013.
Mass ties teacher performance to hiring
Massachusetts lawmakers have swiftly passed a bill calling for all school districts to use new teacher evaluations and reduce the role of seniority in personnel decisions.
The measure got a green light from House lawmakers yesterday without debate, according to the State House News Service. It had already passed the Senate and now heads to Governor Deval Patrick for a signature.
In one of her first acts as Rhode Island Education Commissioner, Deborah Gist ordered school districts to halt the practice of using seniority as the sole factor in teacher placement and layoffs. The state has also moved aggressively to implement annual teacher evaluations, which include student test scores as one measure of teacher performance.
Teachers’ unions have largely resisted efforts to do away with seniority-based teacher layoffs altogether, arguing that senior teachers have expertise from their years on the job, and they could face persecution when school districts look to trim spending.
Students wait for compromise on interest rates
An estimated 40,000 Rhode Island students will face rising loan bills without action this week from Congress. Senate Democrats and Republicans are looking for a way to avoid the increase, but if they fail to reach a compromise, interest rates on subsidized federal Stafford loans will double on July 1st, rising from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.
The average college student in Rhode Island borrows roughly $25,000 from the federal government to help pay for a college degree, slightly higher than the national average. Federal loans have advantages over private loans, but Rhode Island Student Loan Authority Executive Director Charlie Kelley says the federal government has been chipping away at those benefits in recent years.
“Fees have gone up, the feds have also cut back on federal Pell grants, particularly for summer students, there is no longer a subsidized Stafford loan for graduate students,” Kelley said.
The Rhode Island Student Loan Authority has seen an increase in families seeking help with college costs this year. Kelley says 13,000 families have used the agency’s college planning centers over the last year, compared with 11,000 the prior year. He estimates that on top of the loans students take out, parents are borrowing an average of $10,000 for the first year of college alone.
State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is calling for the closure of the Academy for Career Exploration (ACE), formerly known as Textron/Chamber of Commerce Providence Public Charter School, citing poor academic results and leadership failures.
According to a recommendation from Gist’s office, the school has not performed well enough to merit the renewal of its five-year charter. ACE had no students scoring proficient or better on the most recent state test of mathematics. The review also cites a systematic failure to provide support for students who struggle with math, poor administrative and board oversight and an incomplete curriculum.
ACE serves 225 high school students and is part of the Providence Public School District, which means teachers at the school are union members. The academic program includes a focus on job skills, requiring community service for 9th and 10th graders and partnering with local businesses to provide internships and afterschool jobs for 11th and 12th graders.
While the school has struggled consistently to raise student achievement in Math, 80 percent of its students were proficient in reading last year, one of the highest rates of any urban public high school in Rhode Island. Head of School Larry DeSalvatore said in written a statement that he is disappointed by the recommendation.
“We have a strategic plan in place that has resulted in consistently high reading and writing scores,” DeSalvatore said. “While our math program has yet to show the same success, we are confident that this same plan will bring improvement and achievement for our students.”
The Rhode Island League of Charter Schools said it also supports ACE.
Earlier this year, Commissioner Gist gave a lukewarm review to another charter school, the New England Laborer’s Construction and Career Academy in Cranston, citing similar academic and leadership problems. However, in that case the recommendation called for a three-year renewal of the school’s charter to give school leaders a chance to improve their program.
Asked why the two schools received different recommendations, a spokesperson from the commissioner’s office said only that the review of the Cranston school began prior to current regulations, which raise the bar for charter school renewals. Gist declined to comment directly about ACE until after the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education discusses the recommendation Thursday.
If ACE’s charter is not renewed, it would become the first public charter school to shut down in Rhode Island for any reason, academic or otherwise, but this is not the first time that Gist has moved to close a charter school.
Early in her tenure as Rhode Island Education Commissioner, Gist recommended non-renewal for the Highlander Charter School, also located in Providence. Parents and other community members were outraged and launched a public campaign to save the school, arguing that it was a haven for students who did not succeed elsewhere and accusing the Department of Education of massaging the numbers to make the school’s performance look worse than it was.
After a flood of emotional public testimony, Highlander received a three-year provisional renewal. In the most recent round of state testing, the school had 70 percent of middle school students proficient or better in reading and 56 percent proficient or better in math, a higher rate than any of Providence’s district middle schools but slightly lower than one other charter school located in the city.
State law school gets green light from regulators
The American Bar Association has granted preliminary accreditation to the law school at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, clearing the way for students to take the bar exam in any state.
Prior to the preliminary accreditation, UMass law school students could only take the bar in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
To get full accreditation, the school must follow ABA guidelines for the next three years. UMass Dartmouth is the first school in the Bay State’s public university system to offer a law school. It currently serves 325 students.
Ruth Simmons joins board at Princeton
Photo by Brown University
Outgoing Brown University President Ruth Simmons will take a seat on the board of trustees at Princeton University next month. Simmons is stepping down on June 30th as head of Brown, ending an 11-year tenure at the Providence institution.
Simmons is no stranger to Princeton. She held several positions at the New Jersey school, including that of vice provost, before becoming president of Smith University. When she became president at Brown University, Simmons was the first African-American to lead an Ivy League school.
Brown’s incoming president, Christina Hull Paxson, also has ties to Princeton. She comes to Brown after a stint as dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
RI teachers win presidential award
Wakefield math teacher Brian Nelson and Warwick science teacher David Mather are this year’s local recipients of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. They join 95 other teachers from around the country who were chosen for the awards.
Winners will be honored at a White House ceremony later this month and receive $10,000 from the National Science Foundation, which they can spend however they want.
A panel of scientists, mathematicians, and educators chose the winners after a selection process at the state level.
Gist: New board won’t change agenda
State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist says her plan for improving Rhode Island’s public schools will not change, even if she is reporting to a new board of education.
The leadership change is part of the state budget that won approval last night from Senate lawmakers. It has already gotten a green light from the House of Representatives.
The budget calls for the current Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education to be dissolved and combined with the board that oversees public colleges and universities. Gist says she is ready to work with Governor Lincoln Chafee as he appoints a new board of education.
“It is important that all Rhode Islanders continue to focus on accelerating all schools toward greatness,” Gist said in a written statement issued yesterday. “My team at the R.I. Department of Education and I are prepared to continue to work together with our partners in higher education to ensure that we continue to improve teaching and learning across our state.”
Gist’s agenda for improving public schools has included some controversial measures like in-depth annual evaluations for all teachers and administrators. Some school officials have complained that the process is too time consuming.
She has also championed increasing the number of charter schools operating in Rhode Island, and her agenda helped the state garner a $75 million federal Race to the Top Grant, along with a second Race to the Top grant for early childhood education.
Gist is currently contracted to remain as the state’s education commissioner through June 30th of 2013.
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