It’s All About Education: Making a Commitment to Rhode Island’s Children

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Lauri Lee, GoLocalProv Education Expert

 

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Lauri Lee

Last week, the 2015 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook was presented to a room filled with health care and education professionals, policy makers, and local and state leaders. While Rhode Island has made great gains in some areas, decreasing both the percentage of infants born at high risk and the teen birth rate, for example, there are other areas where we must make progress if we are committed to the health and wellbeing of every child in our state. 

Interestingly, while overall public school enrollment has dropped by 9% over the past ten years, the percentage of low-income students enrolled in the public schools has increased from 43% in 2010 to 47% in 2014. These figures imply that, as I’ve mentioned in previous columns, our schools are serving a population that requires more services. Low-income students are more likely to lag behind their peers academically, to have chronic health conditions that affect school attendance, and to drop out of school before graduating from high school. In order to provide the services necessary to ensure that all kids achieve and succeed, our schools will likely need more funding. 

The percentage of children in Rhode Island who are living in families below the federal poverty threshold rose from 19% in 2010 to 21.5% in 2014. This statistic places our state 26th in the nation, and we have the highest percentage of all six states in New England. Children in poverty are more likely to experience difficulty in school, less likely to be enrolled in preschool, and have fewer opportunities to participate in afterschool and extracurricular programs. More than one in five Rhode Island children enter our school system already at risk of failure. 

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In her keynote speech at the Rhode Island Kids Count breakfast, Brown University President and economist Christina Paxson stated that investments in early childhood education are one of the most important things we can do, and that the “economic returns to investing in early childhood health and development are incredibly high.” She also emphasized the importance of home visiting programs and high quality daycare to the growth of a secure and competent citizenry and work force. 

Enrollment in state pre-kindergarten has risen from 144 in 2012 (when it was first offered) to 306 in 2014, while 81% of all kindergartners in the state are enrolled in full-day kindergarten. In her FY2016 budget proposal, Governor Gina Raimondo has allocated funds to triple the number of pre-kindergarten programs in the state and to implement universal full-day kindergarten for all Rhode Island children. This is a great start, but I don’t believe it goes far enough or starts early enough to ensure that all children have the best chance for success. 

In the state of Rhode Island in 2014, there were 238 children enrolled in Early Head Start and 527 children enrolled in Head Start. In the last 5 years, there has been a decrease in both the number of licensed early learning centers and the number of licensed family childcare providers, meaning that many parents struggle to find quality care for their infants and toddlers. 

Rhode Island uses federal funding from the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program to fund three evidence-based family home visiting programs: Healthy Families America, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Parents as Teachers. Senator Paiva Weed and others have introduced the RI Family Home Visiting Act to ensure that the Department of Health develops and coordinates these home visiting programs. There were a total of 500 families enrolled in these programs statewide in 2014. An additional 2,184 developmentally delayed children in the state receive early intervention services. Together, all of these early childhood focused state-sponsored programs serve 3,449 children, less than two percent of the 212,847 children under age 18 living in Rhode Island. 

We know that a child’s life from birth to age three is a period of tremendous brain growth; the child’s environment during that time can have a profound impact on the structure of the brain, affecting learning and success into adulthood. Good nutrition, safe housing, secure and loving relationships with caregivers, and multisensory experiences are all critical to a child’s healthy development. Home-visiting programs, affordable high-quality daycare, and early childhood education centers provide needed support to families as they raise healthy, inquisitive children who will enter our schools ready to achieve. 

Elizabeth Burke Bryant, Executive Director of Rhode Island Kids Count, has stated: “Our state’s economic future depends on healthy children and strong families…. Investing in healthy, well-educated children is an investment for our future workforce and the next group of community leaders for Rhode Island.” Our state policy makers seem to understand the critical importance of early childhood health and education programs; now, they must also find the money in our state budget to expand those programs so that ALL of Rhode Island’s children will grow to reach their full potential. 

Lauri Lee is an independent consultant with over twenty years of experience in both public and private education, with learners from infants through adults. With experience in teaching, marketing, communications, social media, development, admissions, and technology, she is able to synthesize many of the issues facing our educational system today. She lives in Providence, RI with her family, a big dog, and a small cat. She blogs at http://www.AllAboutEducation.net and you can follow her on Twitter at @fridovichlee. 

 

Related Slideshow: RI Experts on the Biggest Issues Facing Public Education

On Friday November 22, the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University, the Latino Policy Institute of Roger Williams University, the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, the Providence Student Union, and RI-CAN: Rhode Island Campaign for Achievement Now will host Rhode Island leaders in the public and nonprofit sectors for a symposium on "the civil rights issue of the 21st century, adequacy and equity and the State of Education in Rhode Island."

Weighing in on the the "three biggest factors" facing education in the state today are symposium participatnts Gary Sasse, Founding Director of the Hassenfeld Institute for Leadership; Christine Lopes Metcalfe, Executive Director of RI-CAN; Anna Cano-Morales, Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, Central Falls Public Schools and Director, Latino Policy Institute at Roger Williams University; Tim Duffy, Executive Director, RI Association of School Committees; and Deborah Cylke, Superintendent of Pawtucket Public Schools.  

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Sasse

"Provide a state constitutional guarantee that all children will have access to  an education that will prepare them to meet high performance standards and be successful adults.

Bridge the gap between the educational achievement of majority and minority students.  This will require the implementation of a comprehensive agenda for quality education in Rhode Island’s inner cities."

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Sasse

"Revisit school governance and clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the state, school districts , neighborhood schools, and school teachers and school administrators.  Develop and implement a system to hold schools responsible for student outcomes."

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Sasse

"Build a consensus and buy in of all stakeholders around  the education reform initiatives being advanced by the Board of Education."

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Metcalfe

"Set high expectations and raise our standards across the state for anyone that contributes to the success of our students. From adopting the Common Core to discussing rigorous teacher evaluations, conversations around creating a culture of high expectations have to be at the center of the work."

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Metcalfe

"Expand opportunities and start earlier - we must ensure that all kids have access to a high performing public school of their choice, which includes full-day kindergarten."

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Metcalfe

"School facilities - with an aging infrastructure, underutilized buildings and the need to provide fair funding for school facilities for all public school students regardless of the public school they attend, this needs to be a top issue tackled by the RI General Assembly in 2014."

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Cano-Morales

"Meet the academic potential of all students but especially with regards to urban schools students -- 3 out of 4 are Latinos in Providence, Central Falls, and Pawtucket." 

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Cano-Morales

"Connect through specific best practices the academic successes of our students to careers jobs. Investing in schools is economic development as a whole for Rhode Island. " 

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Cano-Morales

"Increase the access to -- and completion of -- higher education and post- secondary opportunities.  Poverty? Struggling families? Education and access to careers and competitive wages is the best antidote."

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Duffy

"Providing adequate funding is critical -- and there are going to be pressures on the state budget, which mean stresses to meet the education funding formula.  With the predictions of the state's projected loss of revenue with the casinos in MA, education funding could be on the cutting board, and we need to ensure that it's not.  Do we need to look at strengthening the language of the constitution to guarantee funding?"

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Duffy

"Implementing the common core standards will provide continuity -- and comparison -- between states now.  With over 40 states involved, we're embarking a new set of standards here."

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Duffy

"Accountability and assessing student performance -- how that it's driven by the common core, we'll be able to compare the best districts in RI against the best districts in say MA.  That's the intent of the Common Core is a standardization of how we hold the system accountable."

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Cylke

"Issue one is quality.  Your quality of education should not be dependent on your zip code.  And the reality is, certain cities are distressed, or whose property values are not as high, I know each town has a different capacity to fund education. There's an absolute, clear relationship between the quality of public schools, and economic development of states. There's irrefutable evidence that quality public schools can make states more competitive."

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Cylke

"Issue two is equality.  In West Warwick and Providence, the per pupil spending is around $16K.  In Pawtucket it's $12.9.  What's wrong with that picture? If I'm in charge of overseeing that my students are college ready, they need to be adequate funding.  A difference of $3000 per pupil?  We're talking in the tens of millions of dollars -- more like $25 million in this case.  An exemplary school district is Montgomery County, MD -- they have roughly the same number of students, around 145,000 -- there's one funding figure per pupil. There's equitable funding for all kids."

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Cylke

"Issue three is Infrastructure.  A critical issue is whether the state is going to lift its moratorium in 2014 for renovations for older schools, ore new construction.  If that moratorium is not lifted, and those funds are not available, it is critical to us here in Pawtucket. The average of my schools is 66 years, I've got 3 that celebrate 100 years this year. These old schools have good bones, but they need to be maintained.  These are assets -- and this is all interrelated with the funding formula."

 

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