Education
Unsurprisingly, many invested in the current education system object to proposals to tie graduation to discrete, measurable testing requirements: Dozens of speakers last night said they were worried about a provision that would make the English and math scores of statewide standardized tests students take at the start of 11th grade count toward one-third of…
The opinion page of the February 21, 2008 edition of the East Greenwich Pendulum carried a letter from the co-presidents of the East Greenwich Educational Association, the local branch of the NEA teachers’ union, in which they wrote (not available on-line) the following under the heading of “Teachers union heads seeking ‘balance’ in contract”- We,…
Last week’s stunner was a feeling of agreement with Bob Kerr: No summits, no rigorous testing of teachers, can restore what has been lost in too many schools — the basic respect for learning and for the place a teacher holds in making good things possible. Until we can reverse the damage done before some…
I finally managed to take a look at the Providence Journal story about the abysmal math scores of Rhode Island’s high-school students, and I have to say that I think Dan Yorke‘s show may be underrepresenting the problem. The woman from the Department of Education whom he was in the process of interviewing when I…
To my recent post that featured a table of the Cost/Resident to foot the payroll for their local public schools, Thomas Schmeling commented: It’s probably also useful to recognize that some communities have higher proportions of children than others so that, even if two communities are spending the same amount per resident, they might be…
So what are the odds of this becoming law? Amending state law to clearly prohibit strikes is the task force’s first recommendation. If Carcieri supports the plan as expected, he would have to ask lawmakers to submit the bill to the General Assembly for a vote. Officials at the state Department of Education researched tougher…
Working off of the data provided by the ProJo, I’ve come up with a few lists of what it costs per resident of every city and town in the state to pay the salaries (important: salary only, benefits not included) of each state and local government employee. To start, here is the data on Schools…
I was able to attend Governor Mike Huckabee’s Rhode Island press event last evening, immediately preceding his rally in Warwick. During the press conference, Russell J. Moore of the Warwick Beacon broke a chain of horserace and identity politics questions being asked by other reporters to — get this — ask an actual question about…
Jennifer Jordan has an article in today’s Providence Journal’s about a recently released RIPEC report, “How Rhode Island School Finances Compare”. The ProJo headline, “R.I.’s Reliance on Local Taxes for Schools Deepens” and the subject of the first five paragraphs of the article, was actually only one of eight major findings of the report. This…
In a letter to the editor of the Sakonnet Times (not online), Tiverton High School physics and chemistry teacher Richard Bernardo offers general encouragement to everybody involved in the contract disputes to “roll[] up [their] sleeves and [get] the job done.” In light of news released since Mr. Bernardo penned his letter, this part sticks…