Here’s the laugh line from Jill Rodrigues’s Sakonnet Times story on the professional study that concluded — shockingly — that the Portsmouth school system needs more money:

Although much of that money is spent on salaries and benefits, the consultants did not weigh in on contract provisions and their impacts on the district.

Reading some of the details from Berkshire Advisors’ report gives one the sense of a skewed mentality articulated: The school district needs to spend more on everything (except nurses), increasing programs for everybody from those with special needs to those with especially talents, but the money is just supposed to be found.
Frankly, the district would have made a modest advance in that regard by saving its consultation expenditures and asking any Rhode Island parent with some common sense what he or she believes the problem to be. More and more, the practical answer is: a lack of vouchers for private school.