Lisa Blais: Education Is Rhode Island’s Political Football
Thursday, June 06, 2013
By now, most every Rhode Islander knows (or should know) that The Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education’s contract is up for renewal. It has been widely reported and distorted (by some) that our students’ and teachers’ futures are in dire trouble if this contract is renewed. To add insult to injury, Governor Chafee has failed to unequivocally announce that he expects the Commissioner’s contract to be renewed for a full term of three years.
Worse, his handpicked newly merged Board of Education with the blessing of its Chairwoman Eva Marie Mancuso has refused to publicly call for the same. Her recent remarks on WPRO reflect the political jockeying going on at all levels when she was asked point blank about the length of the contract renewal. She said “I recommend that we extend Gist’s contract, period.” Commissioner Gist’s contract expires tomorrow Friday, June 7 and the Board of Education is slated to vote on that contract this evening. Nice work? No. It is lousy optics and egregious messaging.
Push-back heats up
Since the former Board of Regents and the current Commissioner took steps to raise educational expectations by making some changes to RI’s Basic Education Plan (BEP), which had gone largely untouched for far too long, the undercurrent of push-back has been simmering to a boil. Think back, the typical media coverage on education in the “old” days were all about threats of work-to-rule and strikes over compensation packages. Rarely, did we hear about “fights” over how to improve our students’ achievement levels or more to the point, what we needed to do to stop graduating borderline illiterates.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBut, instead the teachers ‘unions are crying foul over the Commissioner’s contract renewal. They want her out. This, after Commissioner Gist collaborated with them for years on the development of the teacher evaluations and received sign off from the Providence Teachers’ union in order to win the Race to the Top and after demanding that our education system meet certain minimum standards to graduate our children ensuring they are employable or actually ready for college; and after stating that every classroom should be taught by the best possible teacher. It is clear that the teachers’ unions don’t want to be held accountable to you, the parents, or even to the business community, who time and again, have said that RI’s youth are unemployable.
National interference--why?
And, just two days ago, Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education took to the phone lines with our local media to discuss RI’s educational system and Commissioner Gist’s fate in RI. We’re not convinced that this is the kind of political attention that RI needs. The focus should be on how everyone – including the unions’ orchestrators – works together in a professional manner that concentrates solely on improving all students’ academic outcomes. Instead, we “fight”, and yes, it’s clearly been a “fight”, ranging from pointing to emotional lightening rods about respect and morale to the integrity of testing.
Why is it that when changes are made with the aim to improve our school system all hell breaks loose but when we graduated generations of kids who were not prepared for work or college that “fight” went silent? Rather, the Twitter world was lit up with remarks about whether or not Duncan actually referenced Commissioner Gist’s name during the discussion or whether he or that office had ever gone to bat for any other state level head of elementary and secondary education. Labor chimed in as well with this tweet: Now it is Gist, Duncan and Bush joined at the hip. And yesterday Gist said she needed to improve relations. This won't help. Does she care? We are witnessing just more political wrangling from all angles.
No one can claim that our public school students’ general academic performance has been stellar. In fact, it is lackluster and worse when compared not to each other, not just to Massachusetts but internationally. This is not new news to anyone who has taken more than a passing interest in educational statistics, research and best practices. But here in RI it is the same old song in spite of the fact that most everyone agrees that we must make systemic changes to the way we operate our schools.
A broken system
To be blunt, our public school system remains broken. Much work still needs to be done to narrow the achievement gaps among various groups of our students and everyone is responsible to stop the political maneuvering and figure it out. But, sending a message that a change agent is not welcome in the Commissioner’s seat is bad for students and bad for RI.
We must rise above all of the partisan political noise. Regardless of where anyone stands on the details and process of the changes to the BEP, one thing remains constant and that is that RI needs to send the larger message - to everyone who has been watching this drama unfold - that we will stay on the track to improve our public school system by offering Commissioner Gist a contract that provides a solid three years to continue to lead the necessary work.
Don’t let jockeying over the next election for governor impact the term of the Commissioner’s contract. If pandering for labors’ vote wins over sending the strong message that we are committed to standing by “improvement now” then no one can deny that our kids and our schools are nothing more than the political football that has become public education in RI.
If you believe that our children’s education is paramount to turning RI’s economy around then call (401) 222-2080 or email Governor Chafee ([email protected]) today and tell him that you want him to reenlist the help of Commissioner Gist for the next 3 years. Our children’s future depends on it and so does RI’s reputation.
Lisa Blais is a board member of OSTPA, a taxpayer advocacy organization in Rhode Island.
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