Education
Julia Steiny makes a reasonable point about the ability of the General Assembly — with limits and mandates for local teacher contracts — to ensure “peace at the local level,” but her assessment doesn’t go quite far enough: And this is the point: labor peace must be bought. And nothing is excluded from negotiations. Everything…
You’ll want to keep this in mind as your town wades through budget season: The current budget dedicates $37 million in these stabilization funds this year, leaving a balance of $32 million to be used next year — the final year of the stimulus package from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. … School districts…
The topic of my call in to the Matt Allen Show, last night, was my interview with Education Commissioner Gist. Stream by clicking here, or download it.
Among the encouraging opinions that Education Commissioner Deborah Gist gave during our discussion was that she thinks Rhode Islanders already contribute enough money to their education system to have all of the programs that those of us over thirty enjoyed in public school — sports, gifted/talented, music programs, math clubs, and so on — and…
Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Deborah Gist has reworked her office space. The unguided visitor would surely pass her desk by, thinking it that of a secretary — although a secretary to whom it would not be clear, because she has knocked down the wall to the large corner office and transformed…
My main argument against looking toward centralized levers — whether in Providence or Washington — to reform education has essentially been that national teachers’ unions are better situated to manipulate higher tiers of government than are concerned residents acting through democratic processes. Within the scope of town politics, an active group can have some hope…
There are two factors — arguably in opposing ideological directions — in which this news should raise concerns: A plan to create what could be the first U.S. public charter schools run by a Roman Catholic archdiocese is meeting resistance from those who worry about whether religious messages and icons will really stay out of…
Over at Rescuing Providence, as is his wont, EMT blogger Michael Morse reports on an interesting rescue call. Called to the local high school for a female having difficulty breathing. Arrive on scene to find the female lying in the nurses office, on the couch hyperventilating. I learned that she is a Geometry teacher who…
Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist has released the text of her State of Education speech (PDF)to the RI General Assembly. In it, she charts a course for improving RI’s education system via a holistic approach. She also explains where RI needs to improve in its next Race-to-the-top bid: …we lost points because we don’t…
It was hard not to give some credit to the union-run New England Laborers/Cranston Public Schools Construction Career Academy when it gave some of its money back to the town to maintain sports programs. Of course, one wondered why it would have extra money — charter schools aren’t fully private schools — but the sentiment…