schools – RI Future

April 19, 2015

Colorado’s funding formula for school construction

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If you can believe it, until 1998 school building construction was a local matter in Colorado. Functionally speaking, with the current moratorium on state aid for school construction and rehabilitation, this is the case in Rhode Island right now. In Colorado in the 1990s, and in Rhode Island today, young people in low-income, politically-weak areas are less likely to attend high-quality public school buildings than those in wealthier, politically-networked areas.

Since 2008, however, Colorado has administered a competitive grant application for districts based on diverse state funding streams, including, since 2012, a small percent of taxes from marijuana sales.

“The state’s voters in 2012 legalized pot sales – and taxed them heavily – in part because the constitutional amendment promised that $40 million a year would go toward school construction across the state,” according to USA Today. “In the first full year of sales, however, the state expects to collect only about $17 million in special school taxes levied on the marijuana industry. Still, it’s better than what the state collected the year before: nothing.”

Colorado’s current state funding stream has its origins in a 1998 class action lawsuit (Giardino v Colorado State Board of Education), says Kori Donaldson s. “The lawsuit alleged that the state had not fulfilled its constitutional responsibility to establish and maintain a thorough and uniform system of public schools because of the deteriorating condition of many public schools and issues of overcrowding.”

In response, “Senate Bill 00-181 implemented the terms of a settlement, which required the General Assembly to appropriate $190 million for public school capital construction over a period of 11 years. In 2008, the General Assembly enacted the BEST act [Building Excellent Schools Today].

The BEST program distributes approximately $40 million a year. Yet, the demand for better schools in Colorado outpaces the funding supply, even with the BEST program. Colorado’s challenges include overcrowded classrooms and overstretched buildings (one principal, Melanie Moreno, noted, “Even if we hired more teachers, we wouldn’t have anywhere to put them.”)

Todd Engdahl argues, “The BEST selection process is unique in that the construction board has a certain amount of discretion in making its recommendations and because it makes its decisions request-by-request in an open meeting where applicants are allowed to make brief in-person pitches to the board, in addition to the voluminous applications they filed months ago…

The board uses a complicated process to cull the applicants. Projects require a majority roll-call vote to advance to a short list, but projects die if they don’t gain a majority, don’t get a second or fail to spark a motion at all.”

The Massachusetts model remains superior in that its application process has an emphasis on “urgency and need” in making decisions for construction, and provides a steady, consistent, and much larger funding stream. That said, Colorado shows a willingness to organize a formal, transparent grant process to make funding decisions, and the possibility of including new revenues.

Massachusetts and Colorado both have consistent funding streams to rehabilitate and construct school buildings. Rhode Island’s leaders have a great chance to be innovative and do right by students, families, and teachers.

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

Public school students and inmates need more vocational training

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Parents, politicians, teachers and taxpayers must better prepare people for life after an institution. This holds true for both ACI inmates and Rhode Island high school students.

Public high schools no longer stress hands on training. Instead, they focus on English, math, science, history, though these subjects are hard pressed to hold a teenagers’ attention for four years. One alternative could be to include more vocational electives within our public schools. This elective – think: autobody repair, cooking, hairstyling, barbering, etc. – would help encourage students to stay in school, because with the completion of the recommended hours in that elective, a student could earn a license as well as a high school diploma.

A trade elective could be mandatory for all students, so long as it granted them choice in choosing what elective to pursue, thereby giving them the hours and experience to obtain their license, to be able to go straight to work upon completion of high school.

Such a program is even more needed for young men who are incarcerated.

Many 18 to 22-year-olds are being released back into society with stable minds but no valid work opportunities to release their positive and renewed energy. So instead they return to their old neighborhoods or life of crime, mostly because there’s not a system in place to reintegrate them back into society. Here in medium security at the ACI, there are 16-20 people released every month. That is a total of about 200 people a year just from this facility alone.

There needs to be more job placement workshops and skills building opportunities for inmates being released. This would especially help the lower class communities because it would also revitalize those depressed economies and rebuild the local infrastructure. It would help rebuild the communities themselves.

There should be more communication between the probation officers and community leaders to develop new programs and ways to keep these kids from returning back to the life of crime that put them behind bars in the first place.

Believe me, kids today, whether in traditional public school or prison, aren’t bad kids. I help teach, encourage, and talk with them daily, and as I listen to what went wrong in their lives and what could have helped them. Most say they didn’t have that father figure, teacher, or leader to guide them, so they committed a crime to get attention. That’s it!

We need to band together to help our youth, regardless of their ethnicity, neighborhood, or criminal history. When it’s all said and done, that could be our son or daughter, nephew or niece, and they’ll end up growing up in a world that we had the chance to change, but neglected to do so.

I pray this op/ed is received with clarity, and that the reader will act upon these issues concerning our youth. Regardless of their past, all children deserve the same opportunity for a better tomorrow. Let us parents, taxpayers, and public officials stay vigilant to solutions for a better tomorrow.

This post is published as part of the Prison Op/Ed Project, an occasional series authored by CCRI sociology students who are incarcerated at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institute. Read more here:

‘Prison Op/Ed Project’ teaches civic engagement, writing – Meghan Kallman
Does racial injustice still exist? Look at our schools – Aaron Carpenter
Rhode Island charges felons absurdly high court costs – Christopher Nemitz

December 31, 2014January 2, 2015

New year, old wish: Fix our schools

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The decaying school buildings in Providence are a monument to the abject failure of Rhode Island’s political leadership to invest in all the people of the state.

The legislature is willing to spend more than $40 million on a parking garage for lawyers and court employees downtown but not for public school kids in the North or West ends of the city.

Mold and asbestos can be seen on the walls of Gilbert Stuart Middle School. At Roger Williams Middle School, as of a year ago, students couldn’t drink from the bubbler. Esek Hopkins Middle School in the North End is ranked as a “Level 3” building – meaning it is in “fair to poor condition,” needing “moderate to major renovations.” Two of the newer buildings- Del Sesto and Alvarez – are built on formerly toxic industrial sites subject to intense monitoring.

“I think it is immoral we are asking children to enter these buildings,” said Republican candidate Dan Harrop during his mayoral campaign.

“Ordinary people who harm children are punished by courts and despised by society, while politicians who harm children by ignoring the inequalities in public schools are not held accountable for their actions (or lack thereof),” wrote Aaron Carpenter recently on this blog.

And Aaron Apps wrote, “There is a kind of slow, horrible violence being done against the students and teachers expected to occupy these buildings.”

Other states don’t do this to their children.

For several years I taught in Fall River, MA. I worked in a modern school building barely five years old. In fact, many of the elementary and middle schools in the city, one of the poorest in the state of Massachusetts, are barely a decade old, thanks to a massive investment in school infrastructure and equipment by the state.

I live in California now, and what I’ve seen with public schools here just breaks my heart. Not for California, but for Rhode Island. (There are plenty of challenges and needs…plenty of people working for positive change.) I’ve seen “dilapidated” schools in Oakland, CA which look pretty great compared to some of what we have in Providence. There are district schools in East Oakland, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Bay Area, which have skylights and modern computers. There is a community college in Hayward, CA with solar panels above the parking lot.

A tangible way to increase jobs, make a long term investment, and brighten the day of children and families is to renovate and re-invest in our schools. The money is there, we just need the will to do so. Maybe this year we will.

Gina Raimondo, Nick Mattiello, Teresa Paiva-Weed and Jorge Elorza have a chance to be the governor, speaker, senate president and mayor who rebuilt Rhode Island’s schools. Sounds like good politics, and actually good for the people.

My wish for the New Year is that Rhode Island muster the political class and economic sense to treat every child like their own.

December 17, 2014December 17, 2014

Bus monitors speak out about privatization efforts

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Projecting a tight budget, Providence school officials are considering outsourcing the school bus monitors.

The Providence School Board and Superintendent Susan Lusi are “seeking bids on buses and drivers, and also asking for an additional price for monitors,” said PPSD Director of Communications Christina O’Reilly.

There are nearly 200 bus monitors in Providence, who earn an average of $12.37 per hour. When public education outsourcing occurs a private company often hires back some employees at a lower wage and other new employees at drastically lower wages.

“Seeking this pricing in no way obligates the School Department to have the transportation vendor provide the monitors, but provides us factual information regarding costs,” O’Reilly told me.

“The genesis of this issue precedes the incoming Elorza administration by nearly two years,” she told me. But Elorza transition team spokesperson Marisa O’Gara said “Mayor-elect Elorza supports Superintendent Lusi and the Providence School Board’s decision to seek additional information regarding the cost of bus monitors.”

Mayor-elect Elorza and Superintendent Lusi should realize that it is the total cost of privatization needs to be examined, not just the savings that may accrue in eliminating certain jobs and lowering pay.

In talking to bus monitors on Tuesday morning outside the First Student bus lot on Ricom Way in Providence, I learned that the duties and responsibilities of bus monitors are surprisingly complex. In addition to helping schoolchildren on and off the buses, and making sure that vehicles are complying with traffic laws and stopping when the students are in the street, bus monitors are trained in first aid, trained to deal with special needs students (and parents), are there to help evacuate a bus in the event of an emergency and stand ready to protect children from those who might come onto the bus looking to do students harm.

The bus monitors I talked to have been on the job from anywhere between three and 20 years. They know the children they care for. They know the communities they serve. Parents trust the bus system because they know that the bus monitors are professional and accountable.

When I asked the small crowd of bus monitors how many of them lived in Providence, every hand went up. Many are single mothers and fathers. Make no mistake: being a bus monitor does not pay a lot, but it pays enough so that the men and women I talked to can maintain their homes, afford health care and send their children to school. Bus monitors take pride in their work. They know how important their jobs are. They are aware that they play a key role in the safety, security and wellbeing of our children.

The bus monitors spoke to me about their disappointment in Providence Mayor-elect Jorge Elorza, because they feel that they supported him when he was seeking to be elected, but now feel betrayed that he is looking into putting them all on the unemployment line, or to force them to do the same work they do now but for a private company at a fraction of their current pay. They wondered why cost cutting is always placed on the backs of the poorest citizens. They are appealing to the Elorza’s humanity.

Spaight O’Reilly says that privatization is not yet a done deal. “Seeking this pricing in no way obligates the School Department to have the transportation vendor provide the monitors, but provides us factual information regarding costs.”

The cost of nearly 200 Providence families suddenly without jobs in this difficult economy, signing up for various forms of public assistance, should be balanced against the few dollars an hour savings in salaries. A cost also needs to be found for the extra danger our students will be in as responsible, trained professionals are replaced with minimum wage workers who may lack the experience, motivation and training required to properly prioritize the lives of our students.

Privatization of public services too often results in tiny and temporary savings at the cost irreplaceable expertise and the hollowing out of jobs in vulnerable communities. I hope Mayor Elorza is wise enough to see that destroying people’s livelihoods is not a good first step on the sustainable path towards a revitalized Providence.

Below, a bus monitor makes her case in Spanish.

Support Steve Ahlquist!

December 3, 2014December 3, 2014

Condition of PVD schools: ‘a kind of slow, horrible violence’

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I recently wrote a short op-ed for Providence Journal about the state of Gilbert Stuart Middle School demanding action be taken with regard to the physical state of our local schools.

A recent RI Future article published pictures from inside of this school, which show – even if only in part – how poor the conditions of the physical school buildings actually are in urban Rhode Island.

Having been inside this school in particular, I’d say these are just an additional glimpse at the many physical problems the school has.

Beyond the asbestos curtain, peeling paint, and falling roof tiles, I find myself concerned about the prospect of the leaky roof and the resultant mold, as well as the state of the school’s potable – or perhaps non-potable – water.

The photos do provide a much more accurate depiction than Linda Borg’s Aug. 23 article for Providence Journal (“Superintendents say deferred maintenance in Rhode Island schools is driving up costs”) I wrote the critical op-ed in response to an article that seemed more like acquiescing political coverage and a public relations stunt than an honest consideration of how bad the schools are. These are public buildings occupied by students and teachers and they are being left to rot because of poor budgetary management.

The RI Future article also was beneficial for pointing out the school’s score on the 2013 RIDE report, where Gilbert Stuart received 2 out of 5, on a scale where 5 is the lowest score (2 being considered “generally good condition, some system needs. Minor renovations.”).

Looking at the photos, and having actually been inside of the building itself, makes me question the report itself, and how honest it is being about the living conditions inside of schools. I tend to think leaking roofs, likely mold, and an asbestos curtain puts the school in a category that’s much worse than just being in need of “minor renovations.” One wonders if the people grading the schools have looked at so many bad schools, so many schools so much worse than Gilbert Stuart, that their sense of what is acceptable has become clouded.

gilbertstuart8 — Click for more pictures.

What struck me the most about the report, is that the average condition of schools in urban and rural locations is worse than the condition of Gilbert Stuart according to the organization’s grading scale. Urban schools received an average condition rating of 2.25, and rural schools received an average rating of 2.19. Suburban schools were only slightly better on average than Gilbert Stuart, receiving an average rating of 1.85. In other words, Rhode Island has many schools in just as bad, if not substantially worse, condition than Gilbert Stuart.

It is also worth noting that these schools are worth a lot of money (the report values Gilbert Stuart at $18,466,300) and they’re being left unrepaired in ways that are detrimental to the buildings themselves. But that feels besides the point, as these are public buildings being occupied by people, and I tend to think that moldy buildings with asbestos in them are detrimental to the people occupying them.

There is a kind of slow, horrible violence being done against the students and teachers expected to occupy these buildings. This is not just some minor budgetary hiccup: something drastic needs to be done about the condition of these schools for the sake of the children and teachers who spend their days inside the schools.

November 17, 2014November 18, 2014

Providence students speak out

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Past and present Providence public school students spoke at Brown University Thursday night about the difficulties they face in their determination to do well, attend college, and “elevate” themselves and their families out of poverty. They spoke of good teachers, bad teachers, and resource inequality.

“It’s not the teachers’ fault and it’s not the students’ fault,” said Raycily Castillo, who attends the Paul Cuffee School. “It’s where they come from, what’s going on in their homes. No matter how good it is at school, they all have to go back home every day and face a wave of negativity.”

Francois Nduwumwami, from Del Sesto Middle School, added, “Children these days are failing school because of depression.” Mental health crises such as self-mutilation, he said, are common, even at the middle school level.

The panelists’ engagement in extra-curricular programs as well as their obvious pride in being from families who are supportive of their educations, set them somewhat apart from the majority of the city’s students, but they were clearly concerned about their peers and eager to offer advice about how to help more students.

Garren Jansezian, a graduate of E Cubed and now a freshman at URI, emphasized the need for teachers to know their students and care about them. “Advocate, advocate, advocate!” was his immediate response. But he also observed that there needs to be a societal shift in the way families do and do not support their children’s educations: “Parents’ impact on kids is so huge.” He talked about his own personal history with very young parents and how that made life challenging for all of them.

Several of the panelists addressed the difficulty of getting urban students involved in programs that would benefit them. Central High School student Destin Bibimi’s advice was to “get students you’re already working with to talk to their friends.”

“Food helps,” said Sidi Wen, from Classical High School. “Just say, ‘I’m gonna be there, pizza’s gonna be there, you should be there!'”

“We kids are really hungry,” Garren added. “Many of us go home to empty cupboards, especially the last few days of the month when the family is just trying to make ends meet. Snacks are so important. If you don’t eat, you can’t do homework.”

The panelists said they wanted teachers who care enough to build individual relationships with them, who are passionate about their subject and are well-prepared. Teachers need to know how to control their classroom, make the subject interesting to the students, and have faith that each and every student can learn.

The controversy over high-stakes standardized testing came up briefly. Garren, whose senior project last year was on the effects of income inequality on test scores, was strongly opposed. He cited as reasons for his opposition the difference in family resources, the cultural bias in standardized test questions, and the degradation of education in urban schools as a direct result of the high-stakes testing. “Teachers continuously teach to the test,” he said. You may pass the test, but then you go off to college and flunk out because you’re not prepared.”

The nine panelists are participants in Brown University student-originated programs that work in Providence middle and high schools: The RI Urban Debate League, Generation Citizen, Providence Student Union, and BRYTE (Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment).

“While this event is the brainchild of the coordinators (of the four programs), Ashley Belanger, of the RI Urban Debate League, said, “the Swearer Center has encouraged and supported us throughout the planning of the panel. The Swearer Center, Brown University’s center for public service, has increasingly encouraged (Brown’s) students to take an interest in the city in which they live. I think that the Rhode Island Urban Debate League, Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment, Generation Citizen, and the Providence Student Union are all evidence of the increased engagement.”

November 12, 2014November 13, 2014

Providence students, in their own words

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For those who wonder what is really going on in those big old high schools in Providence, Brown University is hosting a discussion about them Thursday, featuring as speakers the very students who experience or have experienced them on a daily basis.

It begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001, the College Green. Twelve current and former high school students from Central, Classical, Hope, Alvarez, E-Cubed Academy, The Met and Paul Cuffee, will contribute their perspectives on a number of issues confronting their schools, such as their schools’ reputations, graduation and college admission rates, what students are offered for lunch, and what they believe makes a great teacher.

There will be a half hour of facilitator-generated Q&A and then 45 minutes of interactive audience Q&A. The discussion is sponsored by Generation Citizen, BRYTE, Providence Student Union, and the Rhode Island Urban Debate League.

March 20, 2014March 22, 2014

Rhode Island’s regressive way of paying for infrastructure

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Gina Raimondo proposes allocating $60 million to fix up schools. As Sam Bell writes, she doesn’t say where the money will come from, only that the legislature will find it somehow.

Gina Raimondo’s campaign manager, Eric Hyers, tells Phil Marcelo of the Providence Journal:

“This $60 million figure we’re talking about? To put it in context, we’re talking about 0.7 percent of the budget. What is more important than building schools that are new, safe, modern and help kids learn?”

Eric’s experience is in federal campaigns, so we can excuse the fact that he is obviously unfamiliar with the ferocity of fights at the State House over far less money than this. So here is a helpful list for him to consider of things that people might consider to be as important as building new schools:

Staffing existing schools,
Buying books and desks in those existing schools,
Funding food stamps,
Helping homeless or threatened children find a place to sleep,
Paying unemployment benefits,
Taking care of the psychiatric patients in the state’s care,
Keeping bridges from collapsing,
Reining in tuition increases at URI,
Cleaning up sewage overflows,
Keeping the lights on at the state hospitals,
Keeping the state police on the highways,
Staffing the prisons,
Running the DMV,
Keeping drinking water safe,
Providing flu vaccines,
Providing speedy trials to defendants

The fact is that you don’t get something for nothing. Repairing schools is a worthy goal. Pretending you can do it for free is how we got ourselves in the fiscal crisis we’ve been in for a decade. If someone has an idea about where the waste is, then let’s hear it. In the meantime, let’s not waste more time with magic money proposals.

Again, Eric’s strong suit is not the state budget, so here are some suggestions he could recommend for paying for this new expense. Some people would even consider items in this list to represent waste. Maybe he’ll mention them to Gina.

Establishing combined reporting would raise about the right amount of money from big corporations doing business in Rhode Island. And
According to last fall’s report, we pay $45 million to only 18 hedge funds to manage pension funds, out of $70 million in fees annually.
According to my calculations, going back to the income tax rates of, say, 1996 would raise around $100 million per year.
State tax credits (film and historic) waste tens of millions of dollars each year, money that goes to cutting the taxes of a rich person or corporation without any public benefit.

The last one there deserves special attention. When the historic tax credit program was ended a few years ago, our state borrowed money to repay those credits. The total amount borrowed was $150 million. Given the way the tax credits work, around $30-40 million of that was borrowed only to lower the taxes of people who had bought tax credits. That is, we borrowed to make a tax cut. If that’s not waste worth cutting out of state government, what is?

May 30, 2012May 30, 2012

RI Progress Report: Marijuana Decriminalization, Brien Defends ALEC, Doherty Distances Self From Norquist

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Two legislative committees last night passed a bill that would make possession of less than an ounce of marijuana punishable by a ticket rather than potential jail time. The bills now head the floors of the Senate and the House. Decriminalization of marijuana makes a lot of sense as it would save taxpayers money and resources without any real downsides.

Rep. Jon Brien, a conservative Democrat from Woonsocket who is also a member of ALEC’s board of directors, has a letter to the editor about how the conservative group has been treated in the media as of late. He writes, “The attacks on the American Legislative Exchange Council have grown louder over the past few months, and even more so over the past few weeks. The real reason ALEC is under attack is because liberal front groups are attempting to completely silence our organization. This was never about the way we operate or a few pieces of legislation. It’s about the fact that they vehemently disagree with our free-market, limited-government principles.”

We applaud Republican congressional candidate Brendan Doherty’s decision not to sign Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge but suspect it has more to do with running for office in generally-liberal Rhode Island than it does with his ideas on how to fund government.

Telling headline of the day: “Over 50% of Dropouts Come From Just 12 RI Schools”

Equally telling lede: “The Providence schools are not meeting the needs of its English-language learners, even though they make up 15 percent of the district’s 22,000 students.”

Why isn’t the national media covering Florida’s attempts to purge registered voters from its books?

Rest in peace, Doc Watson.

March 22, 2012

Education Funding vs. the Restaurant Industry

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Who needs the government’s help more: restaurants or public schools? Which do we value more as a society? The answer to these questions is likely to play out as Rhode Island debates Gov. Chafee’s proposed increase to the meals tax.

While Tea Party activists and restauranteurs rally against the 2 percentage point increase – which, just so we are clear about the kind of increase Chafee is suggesting, would amount to four dimes on a $20 lunch or less than $2 on an $80 dinner – they are effectively lobbying against a $40 million to boon to public schools.

That’s because Chafee proposed the slight increase as a way to better fund public schools in Rhode Island.

“This is a way that the governor could accelerate the education funding formula,” said Chafee spokesperson Chris Hunsinger.”You can talk to almost any mayor who was in the municipal strategy session up here and accelerating the funding formula was one of the ways that was talked about at length that the governor can help cities and towns.”

She mentioned Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and Cranston Mayor Allan Fung by name.

Public school funding is one of Rhode Island’s biggest problems, as evidenced by Woonsocket’s inability to pay for its schools and the state take-over in the 1990’s of the Central Falls school district. And a recent report, as reported by RINPR, shows that graduation rates in Rhode Island are falling.

The restaurant industry, on the other hand, is one of the state’s most successful sectors. Whenever almost anyone talks about what’s right with Rhode Island its world class cuisine is almost always mentioned. Chafee told me recently that as we’ve seen unemployment skyrocket and schools, cities and towns fall into further economic morass, the local restaurant industry has stayed level.

You’ll have a hard time convincing me that people are going to stop going out for an $80 dinner because it’s going to cost $82 instead. Similarly, I think most Rhode Islanders would be happy to pay an extra quarter for a pizza if it means more money for our struggling schools.

Conversely, if the state doesn’t find a better way to fund public education, more and more of our children will be looking for jobs in restaurants rather than looking to spend money in them.