Education
The Tiverton School Committee is discussing whether to grant a leave of absence to an elementary school art teacher, and it’s a strange circumstance. Apparently, the custom is to discuss such matters vaguely, so Superintendent Bill Rearick is offering details only inasmuch as is necessary to rebut reluctance from the school committee, but some details…
This almost sounds like the beginning of a professional work environment: Under orders from the state education commissioner, the district this fall will begin filling vacancies in six schools based not on seniority, but on whether that teacher is a good match for the job — and the school. “I’ve been a principal for 11…
Over the weekend I was at a neighborhood July 4th get-together. The group was a mixed one. If I had to guess, most were either a-political or run-of-the-mill Rhode Island Democrats. The topic turned to the recent closing of a local Warwick elementary school and how property taxes just got a big bump (believe me,…
It shows how far behind I am on catching up that I’ve just managed to watch the episode of Newsmakers featuring OSPRI’s Bill Felkner and Pat Crowley of the NEA, RIFuture, and various other special interest groups. Bill did admirably, but the viewer can observe something that I’ve found to typical of such head-to-heads. Crowley…
Ed Achorn takes the opportunity of the eternal contract bill — which he calls “remarkably reckless and profoundly anti-democratic piece of special-interest legislation” — to offer a helpful rule of thumb on the General Assembly’s standard operating procedures: This is an idea that, at the very least, merits serious discussion, rather than the rush treatment…
Admittedly, yes, he is in part motivated by a lust for federal gold. But this factor in no way abated the fury of certain former supporters of Mayor Thomas Menino (D!) when he announced last month a volte face support of charter schools as a means of achieving education reform in Boston. The speech took…
Education Secretary Arne Duncan was in Los Angeles to speak to an NEA convention. Teachers booed and hissed today as Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged the nation’s largest teachers union to change its view of merit-based pay and incorporate student achievement into teacher evaluation and compensation. Ah, so professional. I’ve been to many engineering conventions…
Quite revealing, the underlying premise of regular Providence Journal contributor Tom Sgouros’s latest. He describes new education standards recently promulgated by the state Board of Regents that appear to give local school committees and districts more freedom in designing their curricula. What’s the problem with that? The upshot is that school districts will be freed…
The General Assembly has created a “labor management board” that will come up with six or more healthcare plan options from which local districts may choose during contract negotiations with teachers. Here’s how the board will be constructed: The board that will be appointed to design and approve the benefit packages will consist of: two…
Gina Macris reports on a document by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) exploring the financial possibilities of merging the three school districts on Aquidneck Island. Readers may have picked up on the fact that I’m a regionalization skeptic, and Macris’s first paragraph points to the reason: Declining enrollment and escalating costs mean that…