Gemma Blames Cicilline for ‘Failing’ Public Schools
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Congressional candidate Anthony Gemma went on the offensive yesterday, saying that primary opponent David Cicilline’s record as mayor of a city where the public schools are failing means that he is not fit to serve in Congress.
Gemma ticked off the symptoms of a Providence public school system in crisis—four out of the five worst-performing schools in Rhode Island, two-thirds of the high schools have been identified under federal law as being “in need of improvement,” and low test scores in the middle and high schools.
“David Cicilline, when he campaigns statewide proclaiming—with a straight face—that his leadership in education has saved Providence public schools from disaster, is not telling the truth. And he knows it,” Gemma said. “And now David Cicilline wants out of Providence in the worst way. He is the captain of this ship, the ship is sinking, and Cicilline is first into the lifeboat.”
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“David Cicilline will spend every penny of his war chest to deceive you and misinform you and buy the Congressional office in which, by the weight of the evidence before us, he is not fit to serve,” Gemma concluded.
Gemma billed the press conference—which was held on the steps of City Hall—as the kickoff to his “Enough is Enough Initiative,” in which he promised to correct the record when his opponents “deceive or mislead voters” about their performance in office.
He denied that his criticisms of Cicilline were negative campaigning. “There is absolutely nothing ‘negative’ about the factually accurate, easily verifiable, and contextually valid exposures of any politician’s records,” he said.
Cicilline Responds
Cicilline issued a response yesterday touting his record on education without directly mentioning Gemma.
“Providing an excellent public education for our children is a high priority for this city and is something we work hard on every single day. A tremendous amount of progress has been made in Providence over the last eight years,” he said.
According to Cicilline, areas of progress include: a district-wide curriculum, developing high-quality after-school programming, instituting drop-out prevention programs, providing professional development for our teachers, and establishing merit-based teacher assignment and teacher evaluation criteria. He also said he had invested in building or upgrading facilities—from the Providence Career & Technical Academy to Nathan Bishop Elementary School to the renovations at Central High School.
“We have accomplished much, but much is still to be done,” Cicilline said. “I’d be proud to compare the work that I have done to improve the quality of public education to the work in this area that’s been done by anyone else in this race.”