July 25, 2014 – RI Future

Aaron Regunberg, the progressive candidate to fill Gordon Fox’s vacant District 4 House seat, wants to get the negativity out of the campaign.

So he’s asked his two opponents to sign what he calls a “Clean Campaign Pledge” which a press release from his campaign says “would require signers to refrain from negative attacks and maintain a high level of honest debate in the race to succeed Gordon Fox.”

Regunberg explained in the release: “Everywhere I go in our district, community members are talking about the need for ethics reform and clean elections in Rhode Island, and are fed up with the negative mudslinging that has become too common in politics today. If we believe in open, honest and transparent elections, then let’s commit to refrain from engaging in these attacks. I have enjoyed running alongside the other committed, intelligent candidates in the race for State Representative.”

So far, one of his two opponents has agreed. Heather Tow-Yick, another young Democrat vying for the District 4 House seat, agreed to sign Regunberg’s pledge, according to her spokesman Rob Horowitz.

“Heather Tow-Yick looks forward to a clean, constructive, but spirited campaign about the major challenges facing the East Side, Providence and Rhode Island and which of the candidates’ real world experience and accomplishments makes them the best prepared to turn progressive values into practical results,” he said. “That is a contest we are confident of winning.”

Miriam Ross, the third Democrat vying for Fox’s former seat, did not respond to an email yesterday.

UPDATE: Ethan Gyles is also running for this seat, as an independent. He reached out on Twitter and said he likes the idea of a clean campaign and would be contacting Regunberg about it.

In Deborah Gist’s dissertation, which the Providence Journal reports on this morning, Rhode Island commissioner of education writes that the firing of the Central Falls teachers was “the most difficult experience and greatest challenge for me personally and professionally throughout the case study period.”

She writes, “Trust was at the heart of the issue in Central Falls… There was also a lack of what is known as ‘collective efficacy’ in which each team member believes that the shared effort of the team will result in a positive result…”

So has Rhode Island’s often polarizing education chief learned much about building trust and engendering collective efficacy since studying this situation as part of her U Penn doctorate?

She lied to teacher and state Sen. Jim Sheehan about it in an email and then told me “I have already spent more time on this than I have or care to spend.”

But she managed to find some time now that Sheehan and I helped bring the matter to the Providence Journal’s attention. Gist gave an interview this week to the Journal this week, which reported the embargo has been lifted on her dissertation (I’m not sure that’s accurate). It’s a puff piece, replete with somewhat misleading passages such as this one:

“Critics have painted Gist as a leader who surrounded herself with like-minded thinkers. But the leader she describes in these pages wants nothing more than the trust of her staff and Rhode Island’s teachers. In fact, she talks about creating a work environment built around love, a place ‘full of joy where people laugh and have fun.'”

As a point of fact, Gist critics (and, really, anyone paying close attention to education politics) know she isn’t surrounded by like-minded thinkers at the Department of Education. Even the dissertation reports that Gist kept current RIDE staff instead of replacing them, as was suggested to her by the Broad Foundation (p. 76). And it’s well-regarded as fact that Gist done little in Rhode Island to create a place “full of joy where people laugh and have fun.”

To this end, Gist’s dissertation and the difficulty the public had in gleaning its substance, is a study in leadership.

Indeed, Gist herself thought to include in her dissertation a quote attributed union leader Marcia Rebak: “Commissioner Gist, teachers in the state of Rhode Island have trust issues with you.”

You can read most of Gist’s dissertation below, save for about 40 pages I wasn’t able to obtain:

Gist Dissertation Select Chapters

Day: July 25, 2014

Regunberg’s pledge: Let’s not go negative in House D4 race

What did we learn from Gist’s dissertation?