“There is great potential within the emerging green industries,” she told me in an extended interview one day after introducing a report that lays out her policy recommendations. “If we as a state position ourselves to maximize all available opportunities it will in fact move us forward and secure for us national recognition.”
The initiative already enjoys broad support in the private sector – from the chamber of commerce to organized labor, she pointed out. And she expects legislators from both chambers will champion the bills as protecting the environment is a bi-partisan cause in the Ocean State. “House, Senate, Democrat, Republican and I guess each of us have an independent,” she said. “It’s really a shared value.”
Carbon pricing bill
Paiva Weed is reserving judgment on the carbon pricing bill introduced yesterday in the House by Rep. Aaron Regunberg. “There is obviously not the same kind of agreement among business and environmentalists on that issue as many are concerned about Rhode Island being an outlier,” she told me. “I absolutely support the goal of the legislation without question. The question is from a business point of view how do we as a region, as a country, internationally, remain competitive and address our concerns regarding carbon.”
Tolls
Representing Newport and Jamestown, Paiva Weed serves the only two communities in Rhode Island that already have toll gantries. She said local bridges managed by the Turnpike and Bridge Authority, funded by tolls, are in demonstrably better condition than those maintained by the DOT, funded through the state budget.
“We have safe, well maintained bridges in Newport, in Jamestown and in the Mt. Hope bridge for one reason: because the individuals who use those bridges pay tolls,” she said. “Every other overpass in the state that I can think of if you drive under is a danger. They are falling down, they are decrepit, they are a danger both to the people over and under them.”
Education
A staunch advocate of progressive education funding, Paiva Weed said Rhode Island needs to continue its recent tradition of increasing state education funding. She added that it’s important to fix the funding formula so that it stops punishing traditional school districts for sending a high number of students to charter schools.
“As charter schools have developed the structure of the funding formula failed to recognize that there would be a tipping point at which the diversion of funds from the traditional public education system would negatively impact the traditional public school system,” she said. “If we as a state supported school choice, which we said we did when we passed the legislation years ago creating charter schools, then we would need to recognize that tipping point and provide additional funds for communities that have more of a draw on their base from charters.”
Listen to the full 23 minute interview here:
]]>Governor Gina Raimondo announced today she is organizing a working group to review the state’s education funding formula.
“After five years, it is time to for a fresh look to review our education funding structure,” she said in a press release sent out today. “A significant part of jumpstarting our economy and creating opportunity for everyone is making sure our kids have access to the best education. Rhode Island has a strong formula and it is model for other states. However all key public policies benefit from regular review.”
State Education Commissioner Ken Wagner concurred, saying, “Now is the right time for another public conversation around the ways we fund children’s futures and about putting our dollars where our values are for the sake of our kids. The bottom line is: Everything we do has to be about supporting teaching and learning. If we’re doing something good, continue. If we’re getting in the way of teaching and learning, we have to be thoughtful and make tweaks. Investing in our classrooms and schools is an investment in the future of our economy and our state.”
Rhode Island didn’t have a formula for allocating state aid to school districts until just five years ago, when a fairly progressive plan that factors in “student enrollment, student poverty levels, and community wealth,” according to the press release. The current funding formula has been criticized as being overly generous to charter schools and not generous enough to poor urban schools.
According to the press release, Raimondo asked the working group to explore these themes:
She appointed these members to the working group:
While the Supreme Court missed an opportunity to interpret that clause to help these innocent children and our state as a whole, the Court’s decision squarely places upon our shoulders the opportunity and the responsibility to amend our Constitution to redress our state’s denial of this fundamental civil right.
This case began in 2010, at a time when the General Assembly debated and approved an education aid funding formula. The formula was enacted amid great fanfare, but the school committees of Pawtucket and Woonsocket knew the hype far exceeded the new formula’s actual merit. Four years into the new formula, the children in Pawtucket and Woonsocket still suffer from inadequate facilities and textbooks, insufficient staffing and personnel, and other deprivations which, as the Supreme Court found, results from a “funding system that prevents municipalities from attaining the resources necessary to meet the requirements” of the State’s educational mandates. In fact, these children’s harm will rise (or sink) to a new level this year, as the state is poised to deprive them of diplomas on the basis of NECAP testing, even as the state deprived their schools of the resources needed to prepare them adequately for the tests.
The Supreme Court was candid about the state’s failures, noting that these children “make a strong case to suggest that the current funding system is not beneficial to students in Pawtucket and Woonsocket, especially when compared to other municipalities.” Despite these deprivations and inequities, however, the Court decided it was powerless to intervene, ruling that “the General Assembly has exclusive authority to regulate the allocation of resources for public education.”
Unfortunately, these children cannot realistically pin their hopes on the General Assembly, which already has been told by the Commissioner of Education that the 2010 funding formula made Rhode Island “the state with the best funding formula in the country.” While accepting the value of positive thinking, the simple fact is that if the Massachusetts border moved a few miles south, the children of Woonsocket would benefit from a funding formula and State support that put Rhode Island’s to shame. That is why the great majority of states (including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont) have constitutional protections that empower courts to break through political stalemate, to provide our children with what many call the key civil right of the 21st
By hewing to a “strict construction” of the Rhode Island Constitution reminiscent of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s decision is a valid exercise of a particular school of legal reasoning, but also a massive missed opportunity to move our State forward in the fields of civil rights and economic development.
With that said, the Supreme Court’s decision speaks with admirable candor concerning the specific ways in which the State’s public education program fails the children of Pawtucket and Woonsocket. In this way, the Court’s decision, even as it denies relief for these children under the terms of the State’s current Constitution, helps make an overwhelming case for amending and improving the Constitution to redress this wrong. Currently, there is pending legislation in the House (H7896) and Senate (S2397) to place a question on the ballot permitting voters to approve a Constitutional amendment to establish a right to education that can be enforced in court. In the four years that it has taken for this case to be decided, both the General Assembly and the courts have made it indisputable that such a Constitutional amendment is the only way to protect this vital civil right.
Over the past month, writers on this blog and representatives of the civil rights community have expressed concerns about how a constitutional convention may compromise civil rights that the current Constitution protects. Friday’s Supreme Court decision makes clear that the current Constitution fails to protect a vital civil right that is harming tens of thousands of Rhode Island’s children every day. With this in mind, I wish to offer an invitation to civil rights leaders and progressives statewide. Please join Rhode Island’s children and urban communities in their effort to convince the General Assembly to place a stronger Constitutional right to education on November’s ballot. If the General Assembly allows voters this chance, you can help advance the civil right of education in Rhode Island without the risks you see in a broader Constitutional convention.
Four years ago, Pawtucket and Woonsocket brought their case to the Rhode Island courts. Last Friday, the Supreme Court passed the baton to the General Assembly, the civil rights community, the progressive community and the people of Rhode Island. Please do not miss this opportunity. Rhode Island’s children (and, by extension, Rhode Island’s future) are depending on you.
]]>That’s what Pawtucket and Woonsocket are arguing before the state Supreme Court in a case that claims the state is unconstitutionally depriving these two school districts of its ability to properly educate its children.
The Department of Education says that the state constitution doesn’t obligate it to provide an adequate, equal or equitable education – only that it “promote” public education. Furthermore, many suburban school committee members, policy analysts and small government activists have pointed out that Rhode Island already imposes a progressive (i.e. not regressive) formula for funding local school districts based on need.
Comparing per-pupil spending between some of Rhode Island’s richest suburbs and poorest cities, it seems they are correct. Barrington and East Greenwich get about 10 percent of their per-pupil education budget from the state and Woonsocket and Pawtucket get more than 60 percent per pupil from the state. In 2014, the state will pay $8,562 per pupil in Woonsocket and $8,270 in Pawtucket. Conversely, the state will pay $1,056 per pupil in Barrington and $987 in East Greenwich. (Ed. note: RIDE does not keep per pupil state aid data, according to RIDE spokesman Elliot Krieger, but you can do the math by dividing column H of this spreadsheet by column A of this spreadsheet, according to RIDE’s Office of Statewide Efficiencies Director Cynthia Brown.)
“At an order of magnitude difference Rhode Island’s funding formula sure does a lot of work to equalize spending,” said Jason Becker, who helped author the 2010 funding formula that Woonsocket and Pawtucket are challenging in court. “I don’t see how the state could do more without dramatically increasing the amount of state funding for education. With our budget and revenue issues I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
But even with a progressive funding formula (the previous formula was not dramatically different for the richest and poorest communities) the results have been unequivocally regressive.
Take NECAP test results, for example. Barrington and East Greenwich 11th graders both scored 70 percent proficient on their math NECAP while Woonsocket 11th graders were 21 percent proficient and in Pawtucket 20 percent were proficient.
Perhaps the answer lies not within how much the aid the state gives each district, but how much aid each district needs. As Becker notes, the state funding formula equalizes spending. Even though Woonsocket and Pawtucket students have vastly different educational needs than East Greenwich and Barrington students, all four educations cost roughly the same.
In 2011, the most recent year I was able to find data on RIDE’s website, (Ed. note: still waiting to hear from RIDE Statewide Effeciencies Office if there is more recent data elsewhere), the average Woonsocket student cost $13,485 to educate and the average Pawtucket student cost $13,007. Meanwhile, the average East Greenwich student cost $13,973 and the average Barrington student cost $12,708. UPDATE: 2012 comparison here, courtesy of Elliot Krieger.
That may be equal. But considering the affluent suburbs seem to be able to do much more with a similar amount of money, it doesn’t seem equitable. Not even close.
East Greenwich recently built a brand new, “state-of-the-art” middle school building and also completed three major construction projects at the high school including an astroturf football stadium, a new entrance facade and new science labs. And next year, the EG School Committee plans to give every high school student their own laptop computer and add a staff member to facilitate the new program.
Meanwhile, this is what Providence City Councilor Sam Zurier, who is litigating the equitable funding lawsuit on behalf of Pawtucket and Woonsocket, said about the situation in Pawtucket:
“Pawtucket cannot afford to issue a separate text book for every child in some of its schools. You have laboratories with mold in them, the plumbing doesn’t work. You have classes in the elementary school that has two grades being taught by the same teacher. It’s often the case that schools run out of paper this time of year.”
]]>He detailed some of the ways these districts are failing to provide an adequate education experience:
“Pawtucket cannot afford to issue a separate text book for every child in some of its schools,” he said. “You have laboratories with mold in them, the plumbing doesn’t work. You have classes in the elementary school that has two grades being taught by the same teacher. It’s often the case that schools run out of paper this time of year.”
The lawsuit was dismissed by a lower court. And Zurier’s co-counsel, Steve Robinson, has been fighting in court for more funding for Pawtucket since 1991. This may be the second such suit, but the first since the state tried to address the issue with a new funding formula in 2010. Zurier said the new funding formula caused more problems for Pawtucket and Woonsocket.
“The 2010 funding formula is actually less adequate than another funding formula the state developed in 2007,” he said. “If the state had implemented the 2007 formula then the school districts of Pawtucket and Woonsocket would be getting several thousands dollars more per child and and that would be adequate funding to allow them to meet the standards.”
Zurier said the 2010 funding formula sends money to every school district in the state, rather than only the most needy districts – “that means there is less money in the pot to go to the poorer communities,” he said. He also said the 2010 funding formula doesn’t account for English language learners, an anomaly among state education funding formulas “and that’s obviously an issue for Pawtucket and Woonsocket,” he said.
‘They watered down the distribution,” Zurier said. “And what you are left with is the poor communities don’t get what they need.”
You can listen to my entire conversation with Zurier here:
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Pawtucket and Woonsocket school districts are appealing a joint lawsuit to the state supreme court which argues that “the State’s 2010 funding formula leaves a severe funding gap.”
The suit contends that because Rhode Island for years operated with a state education funding formula, that it is now implementing the recently-enacted formula too slowly and to the detriment of students and education in these two poor urban school districts.
“There is not enough money for children to take their own textbook home, and the textbooks in question are decades old,” according to the brief. “Children come to school with issues they are dealing with at home, but the schools cannot afford to have enough school psychologists, guidance counselors or other support resources to help children be ready to learn.”
Jason Becker, a former RIDE analyst who helped craft the new formula, says Pawtucket and Woonsocket have themselves, not the state, to blame if students are not receiving an adequate education. On Twitter this morning, he said a Carulo Action, a proceedure in which a school committee can appeal to the state for more education funding from its corresponding town/city council.
The filing lays out in very stark terms the achievement gap so prevalent in Rhode Island public education. You can read the entire filing here. But the introduction gives a great sense of the social implications that the lawsuit is trying address:
]]>Imagine it is a Spring morning in 1996. Two mothers with healthy newborn baby girls rest in adjacent rooms at Womens and Infants Hospital. Mother A and Baby A are part of a middle-class family in Narragansett. Mother B and Baby B are from a Pawtucket family that lives in poverty and does not speak English. In the hospital, Baby A and Baby B receive the same, high quality medical care, and each has the same prospect of a healthy life.
Once the babies leave the hospital, however, their future prospects will diverge sharply. Baby A will receive the best public education money can buy, in a program that spends more $15,000 per child of State and local funds each year, $2,000 above the State average. contrast, Baby B, who has greater needs due to her poverty and lack of spoken English at home, will attend overextended programs in decaying and demoralizing facilities, in a learning environment continually compromised by inadequate resources of less than $11,000 of combined State and local funds ($2,000 below the State average) even while Pawtucket’s tax rate for public schools is higher than Narragansett’s.
Today (in the summer of 2013) Girl A is 17 years old and probably looking forward to her senior year at Narragansett High School, where she will earn a diploma and go on to college. In contrast, if Girl B has not yet dropped out of school, the odds are she will not receive a diploma, even if she passes all of her high school courses. Girl B will face these added risks because of the introduction of “high stakes testing,” which the great majority of Pawtucket 11 grade students failed this year. In many ways, each girl’s future was determined at the time she left the hospital in 1996. To add to the tragedy, the two girls’ diverging futures would have been exactly reversed had the hospital mistakenly sent Baby A home with Mother B, and vice versa.
This imagined story reflects an underlying reality in Rhode Island today. Every day, the children with the greatest needs in Pawtucket and Woonsocket strive to get the best education they can under desperate conditions. The privations that ravage the Pawtucket and Woonsocket public schools are far from inevitable; in fact, many Rhode Island public schools offer a vastly superior learning environment. Wealthier communities offer superior public education because education is a basic right, and because they have sufficient local resources to guarantee that right.
In contrast, Woonsocket and Pawtucket are two of the State’s four poorest communities, and the State’s funding, even under the much-celebrated 2010 school aid funding formula, does not come close to providing what their children need.
In this way, Rhode Island’s public education today fails to meet our most deeply held values, both as Americans and as Rhode Islanders.
What do you think about our state’s shiny new education funding formula? Neither Woonsocket nor Pawtucket are big fans and they are headed to a court date next month with the RI Department of Education (RIDE) over it.
Using measures that used to be part of the funding formula, these two cities are taxed more heavily than any other city or town in the state, save only Providence and Central Falls. But RIDE only suggests they raise taxes more instead of counting on state aid.
To great fanfare in 2010, the legislature enacted a new funding formula to dictate how much state money is shared with the state’s cities and towns. The new funding formula was widely praised for taking the uncertainty out of education funding for the state’s school districts. There are a couple of problems, though.
The first, and biggest is simply that the funding formula does not provide enough money to the places that need it the most. The school committees of Woonsocket and Pawtucket have filed a suit against the state over the adequacy of the funding for education. In a fairly catty reply to press coverage of the suit, RIDE put out a packet of graphs showing that over the past 10 years, Providence tax collections have risen repeatedly while Pawtucket and Woonsocket have not. RIDE calculated that if Woonsocket and Pawtucket had increased their tax levy by as much as Providence had, Pawtucket would have $2000 per student more to pay for education, and Woonsocket $1240 more.
The clear message: Providence has done what it takes, and raised taxes substantially over the past 15 years and Woonsocket and Pawtucket have not. What a bunch of slackers, right? Maybe the supplemental tax under consideration in Woonsocket to fill their budget hole is just catching up for a decade of bad behavior?
Of course the problem with the RIDE data is that Woonsocket and Pawtucket were already heavily taxed 15 years ago. All this data shows is what the increase in taxes has been. How heavy are the taxes in those cities? Has that changed in the last 20 years?
There is a better way to look at this. A number called “Tax Capacity” measures the relative wealth of cities and towns, and another number called “Tax Effort” measures the amount of that wealth that is actually taxed. These numbers used to be part of the funding formula — the version that was ignored during the last 15 years — and their definition is in state law (16-7.1-6). RIDE publishes these numbers on their Infoworks web site, but they use the 2008 data, and several of the values are wrong, possibly typographical errors. (The errors have been brought to RIDE’s attention, but they have neither defended the numbers nor changed them.)
But with the formula laid out in state law, anyone can calculate tax capacity and tax effort, so here they are, using 2010 and 1990 data, ranked by 2010 tax effort.
Municipality | Tax Capacity | Tax Effort | 1990 Capacity | 1990 Effort |
Providence | 31.99 | 266.69 | 52.25 | 199.42 |
Central Falls | 14.18 | 227.04 | 22.56 | 255.17 |
Woonsocket | 27.95 | 218.75 | 46.46 | 163.61 |
Pawtucket | 32.14 | 199.99 | 56.36 | 134.54 |
North Providence | 57.96 | 173.82 | 82.36 | 109.62 |
West Warwick | 59.25 | 148.32 | 76.11 | 105.27 |
Cranston | 74.85 | 143.92 | 98.90 | 101.32 |
Johnston | 89.71 | 127.47 | 98.16 | 100.01 |
East Providence | 74.46 | 124.05 | 94.45 | 102.59 |
Warwick | 105.71 | 118.28 | 114.16 | 111.69 |
Glocester | 100.74 | 105.64 | 100.72 | 103.42 |
West Greenwich | 136.97 | 103.69 | 127.14 | 98.71 |
Tiverton | 100.89 | 103.34 | 119.27 | 77.35 |
Hopkinton | 102.63 | 103.34 | 93.73 | 88.76 |
North Smithfield | 109.08 | 102.47 | 128.73 | 75.36 |
Warren | 100.79 | 97.88 | 87.90 | 105.25 |
Foster | 118.45 | 97.65 | 113.93 | 106.14 |
Richmond | 105.32 | 91.88 | 90.36 | 103.55 |
Lincoln | 137.63 | 89.19 | 129.73 | 90.57 |
Coventry | 90.97 | 88.62 | 86.32 | 91.72 |
Smithfield | 127.90 | 87.08 | 119.00 | 84.65 |
Burrillville | 84.58 | 86.34 | 75.99 | 95.80 |
Scituate | 144.76 | 82.21 | 141.15 | 70.86 |
Middletown | 155.20 | 79.26 | 104.08 | 83.13 |
Cumberland | 105.12 | 76.54 | 111.39 | 80.11 |
North Kingstown | 162.68 | 75.52 | 147.41 | 79.21 |
East Greenwich | 223.05 | 72.81 | 226.97 | 63.86 |
Barrington | 232.53 | 70.32 | 208.23 | 67.09 |
Exeter | 141.01 | 67.07 | 96.87 | 85.42 |
South Kingstown | 158.75 | 66.63 | 123.55 | 80.64 |
Bristol | 118.14 | 62.62 | 95.31 | 79.72 |
Newport | 195.41 | 62.52 | 136.90 | 91.27 |
Westerly | 223.38 | 61.82 | 175.68 | 62.07 |
Portsmouth | 217.32 | 57.84 | 149.34 | 72.72 |
Narragansett | 257.28 | 53.30 | 212.11 | 60.18 |
Charlestown | 298.42 | 44.52 | 247.45 | 52.99 |
Jamestown | 384.86 | 43.61 | 306.80 | 43.23 |
New Shoreham | 1670.44 | 22.17 | 1062.39 | 35.24 |
Little Compton | 648.51 | 21.52 | 346.28 | 37.87 |
(The 1990 data is from the 1992 “Annual State Report on Local Government and Finance” put out by what was to become the Office of Municipal Finance. The 2010 levy data was provided to me by OMA and the assessment data is at muni-info.ri.gov. I also used census data from 1990 and 2010.)
What you see from this table is that Woonsocket and Pawtucket were already among the most heavily taxed towns in the state in 1990.
These are relative numbers, where 100 is the state average in each column, so you can’t compare the 1990 to the 2010 numbers directly, but you can look at the growth of the indicators behind them.
Between 1990 and 2010, the assessed value of property in Woonsocket, equalized and weighted according to another formula in state law so one town can be compared with another despite differences in assessment calendars and practice (it’s called EWAV, and it includes an adjustment for the town’s median income) rose more slowly in Pawtucket and Woonsocket than in any other municipality in the state, an annual rate of 3.8% for Pawtucket and 3.86% for Woonsocket. Over those same 20 years, the EWAV values in Providence rose an average of 4.8% each year. By comparison, Warwick saw growth of 6.3% per year, and Portsmouth saw 9.0%.
Here’s the data (EWAV is in thousands):
Municipality | 2010 EWAV | 1990 EWAV | Growth Rate |
Pawtucket | $3,013,403 | $1,427,388 | 3.80% |
Woonsocket | 1,516,559 | 710,634 | 3.86 |
Providence | 7,505,015 | 2927,949 | 4.81 |
Central Falls | 362,161 | 138,758 | 4.91 |
North Providence | 2,449,538 | 921,354 | 5.01 |
East Providence | 4,614,434 | 1,658,822 | 5.24 |
West Warwick | 2,278,583 | 776,596 | 5.52 |
Cranston | 7,927,256 | 2,622,321 | 5.68 |
Warwick | 11,513,435 | 3,399,716 | 6.28 |
Tiverton | 2,097,388 | 595,065 | 6.50 |
North Smithfield | 1,719,858 | 471,040 | 6.68 |
Johnston | 3,400,091 | 908,254 | 6.82 |
STATEWIDE | 138,666,859 | 34,979,107 | 7.12 |
Glocester | 1,293,518 | 323,974 | 7.16 |
Warren | 1,409,088 | 348,860 | 7.22 |
Scituate | 1,969,910 | 482,021 | 7.29 |
East Greenwich | 3,862,957 | 938,751 | 7.32 |
Cumberland | 4,640,261 | 1,127,569 | 7.32 |
Burrillville | 1,777,974 | 429,962 | 7.35 |
Foster | ,718,814 | 171,410 | 7.43 |
Barrington | 4,996,527 | 1,150,455 | 7.61 |
Coventry | 4,196,466 | 935,387 | 7.79 |
Smithfield | 3,610,988 | 794,954 | 7.86 |
North Kingstown | 5,676,661 | 1,222,312 | 7.98 |
Middletown | 3,302,183 | 706,047 | 8.01 |
Lincoln | 3,826,882 | 816,075 | 8.03 |
Newport | 6,351,713 | 1,347,027 | 8.06 |
Narragansett | 5,378,526 | 1,108,006 | 8.21 |
Hopkinton | 1,107,157 | 224,583 | 8.30 |
Bristol | 3,572,581 | 718,532 | 8.34 |
Westerly | 6,706,033 | 1,323,097 | 8.45 |
Jamestown | 2,740,490 | 534,634 | 8.51 |
Charlestown | 3,077,225 | 558,787 | 8.90 |
Portsmouth | 4,978,614 | 877,550 | 9.06 |
South Kingstown | 6,408,042 | 1,060,821 | 9.40 |
Richmond | 1,069,497 | 168,553 | 9.67 |
Exeter | 1,193,592 | 184,403 | 9.78 |
West Greenwich | 1,107,062 | 154,772 | 10.33 |
Little Compton | 2,983,453 | 403,052 | 10.52 |
New Shoreham | 2,312,906 | 309,597 | 10.57 |
In other words, not only were Pawtucket and Woonsocket among the most heavily taxed communities in the state in 1990, but over the last two decades they had less growth in their capacity to levy taxes than any other town in the state — including Central Falls. Providence raised more money over the last two decades than either town, but they also saw substantially higher growth in their capacity to do so.
It’s easy to cluck one’s tongue about the slackers in Woonsocket and Pawtucket, but the evidence is that those city governments may have known something about their cities that the data crunchers at RIDE don’t.
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