Education

RI Future contributor Te boldly comes out in favor of including cross-district choice in the discussion of how to improve primary and secondary education in Rhode Island…Reforms like the cross-district choice plan former Providence School Board Member Julia Steiny proposed in a Projo article last week deserve a closer look. The plan would tie funds…

I don’t see how the education funding report that Marc just noted fits with all that’s come before into a sustainable plan for the future. We know that officials from both urban and suburban communities seem to have convinced themselves that the purpose of new state education “funding formula” is to provide a bigger share…

Here are the highlights of the preliminary Statewide School-Financing plan as proposed by a special advisory group: [T]he 14-member group, which included state Commissioner of Education Peter McWalters, Timothy C. Duffy, president of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, and Will Van Horne of…

Woonsocket Mayor Susan Menard has submitted a city budget that assumes a slight decrease in state education aid compared to last year. From Kia Hall Hayes in Saturday’s Projo…Mayor Susan D. Menard submitted a $115.7-million budget yesterday that calls for a 3.85-percent tax rate increase — only the third tax hike in the mayor’s 12-year…

I was reading an article in the current issue of City Journal by Sol Stern about the state of Catholic Schools in general and of New York City’s Rice High School in particular when I came across these sentences that startled me a bit…When I went unannounced into classrooms [at Rice High School], I encountered…

From The Economist: Few ideas in education are more controversial than vouchers—letting parents choose to educate their children wherever they wish at the taxpayer’s expense. First suggested by Milton Friedman, an economist, in 1955, the principle is compellingly simple. The state pays; parents choose; schools compete; standards rise; everybody gains. Simple, perhaps, but it has…

The Utah voucher plan for funding public education is being challenged under a provision of Utah law that permits the voters to repeal laws via referendum. From the Salt Lake City Tribune…Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert on Monday declared a referendum petition drive to overturn Utah’s school voucher law “sufficient,” meaning the law is on hold…

Rhode Island’s education aid “funding formula” debate is moving from the sublime to the ridiculous. Pat Crowley (an assistant executive director with the Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association) has posted on his blog a link to a video clip of Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva-Weed discussing the purpose of redesigning the formula.…

Add East Providence to the list of Rhode Island communities with structural finance problems leaving them no longer able to afford their existing school programs. From Alisha A. Pina in today’s Projo…Three of six options proposed by [East Providence] Schools Supt. Jacqueline Forbes two weeks ago included consolidating Martin Middle and Riverside Middle school students…

At Anchor Rising, our reading of the tea leaves has led us to forecast that the Rhode Island General Assembly is planning to reduce state aid to education as a means of closing the state budget deficit. Confirmation that this is indeed the plan arrives today, courtesy of the Projo‘s Kia Hall Hayes…Legislative leaders are…