Education

Did you know that Rhode Island spends more than twice as much per pupil on special education students than on non-special education students? From Jennifer Jordan in today’ Projo… It costs about $22,893 a year to educate a special-education student in Rhode Island compared with $9,269 a year for a regular-education student.Yet despite the fact…

Over at RI Future, Matt Jerzyk equates improving education in Rhode Island to increasing the amount spent on education in Rhode Island…In an article about how a Rhode Island tech company was just bought by Microsoft, it is asserted that we need greater school spending not tax cuts to grow and attract business. After all,…

In response to my post on RI’s education problems, Klaus makes the following request and commentary: … could you please explain to me again how eliminating the teachers’ unions would improve education? I mean, I’m just a stupid socialist (according to a lot of commenters here), so could you big, bright conservatives please enlighten me?…

Every time I come across such news as this, I wonder what it’s going to take to get people incensed: … a new report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called “Leaders and Laggards,” analyz[es] the performance of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The report found that four New England states —…

According to Philip Marcelo of the Projo, leaders from a number of Rhode Island’s smaller cities and suburbs (Cumberland, Johnston, Lincoln, Cranston, Scituate, North Smithfield, Smithfield, and Portsmouth) have made some reasonable sounding proposals for relieving the pressure on local school budgets. Two of the proposals would have an immediate impact…The coalition proposes exempting school…

Maybe Sen. Alves is trying to save money and improve the average education that students receive by pushing wealthier children into private schools. School quality is a critical factor that parents consider when purchasing homes, so those with the means are likely to have the same emphasis on choosing better schools if it turns out…

Dan Yorke of WPRO radio (630 AM) had Senate Finance Committee Chairman Stephen Alves (D-West Warwick) on his show yesterday to discuss the Rhode Island budget shortfall. As part of a long-term plan for bringing fiscal stability to the state, Senator Alves proposed regionalizing Rhode Island’s school districts into 5 county-level school systems. Now, maybe…

The Sisto family school choice program reminds me of another news story that is not receiving the attention it should be getting. This fall, Utah will become the first state in the nation to implement a universal school-choice voucher plan. Here is a description of the program, from Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg of the…

…two of them, anyway. The two would be North Providence City Councilman (and Mayoral Candidate) John Sisto and North Providence School Committee Chairman Donald Cataldi. According to