Battle Over Education Reform Erupts — High Stakes Testing and Teacher Evaluations Are Hot Spots
Tuesday, May 07, 2019
On Tuesday, State House leaders will be unveiling a series of education reform bills.
This comes in response to abysmal test results released in November that showed Rhode Island schools lagging far behind Massachusetts schools.
“A report comes out saying that the performance in our public schools is way behind our neighbor and if Rhode Island was one district we'd be the bottom 10% of Massachusetts,” said Gary Sasse, former Director of Administration for the state of Rhode Island.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTLast week, Representative Gregg Amore previewed in GoLocalProv what he said is the "game-changing" legislative package that will propose greater local control including site-based management, but the big issue may be what isn’t in the package.
“Piece two is the school-based management model,” said Amore. “School committees will give up their power to hire. The hiring process, [school committees] will still budget for that, but the hiring process will be school-based. The principal and school improvement team will get together to identify what they need in the day to day operations.”
Amore addressed the additional responsibility for school principals.
“[Principals'] 'full plates' are sometimes caused by top-down initiatives that they would prefer not to deal with. Most principals we discussed this with -- and principals in Massachusetts -- think this is a game changer,” said Amore. “They know the heartbeat and pulse of the school. The school improvement team is already in statute, we just expand its powers. [The teams] are educators, representatives from the PTA, and someone from outside in the community, likely the business community, who get together to talk about how the school will be managed. It will be scheduling, common planning time — those have been traditionally top-down.”
Will Reform Include Teachers and Testing
Will high stakes student testing and comprehensive teacher evaluations be included in a Rhode Island reform package?
In November, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) released performance results for students in grades 3 through 8 on the Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System (RICAS) -- and on average, Rhode Island scored 17 percentage points lower than Massachusetts in ELA and 20 percentage points lower in mathematics, according to RIDE.
In response to the new focus on the performance of public schools, the National Education Association Rhode Island (NEARI) launched a video claiming teachers support school building repairs and universal pre-K to raising awareness about mental health issues and fighting to end student hunger.
“Rhode Islanders love to compare our state to Massachusetts, specifically asking why our student test scores are lagging behind. This ad campaign tries to highlight the ‘why?’” The fact is, twenty-five years ago, Massachusetts made a once-in-a-generation investment in education, implemented a plan, and stuck to it. That’s why their students and schools are high-performing,” said NEARI President Larry Purtill.
Sasse added that Massachusetts did more than that.
“Massachusetts also did a few other things -- they put a hell of a lot of money into [education reform and] they were realistic in what they could fund because the courts were leaning over their shoulder. They included high-stakes testing and they dealt with teacher evaluations tied to the test," said Sasse.
Sasse said it is critical to include teacher evaluations and high stakes testing in any comprehensive education reform package.
The new NEARI public relations campaign does not address the issue of the evaluation of teachers.
“Too often, I hear the narrative that teacher unions are part of the problem, yet that is simply not true. By way of comparison, Massachusetts has very powerful teacher unions and their student test scores are great. We need to identify and address the real issues our students face – and that’s exactly what our union is doing. NEA Rhode Island is ensuring our members are well equipped to enter the classroom and ready to address the unique challenges our students face today. It’s more than just teaching,” said Purtill.
NEARI and Center for Freedom and Prosperity Face Off Over Teacher’s Salaries
Bob Walsh, executive director of NEARI has said that RI teachers averaged $66,758 in salaries, compared to $80,357 in Massachusetts - a gap of $14,000.
"However, the salary figure reported in the official Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island (ERSRI) report show an average 2018 RI teacher salary of $77,581 - about $11,000 more than Walsh claimed. Further, the similar report in MA shows their average teacher salary (including Boston) was just $74,156 - about $6,000 less than he claimed," says the Center for Freedom and Prosperity in a press release issued on Monday.
According to the Rockefeller Institute, Massachusetts teachers are the fifth highest paid in the United States-- earning $72,314. Rhode Island teachers are the11th highest paid at $67,010.
Moreover, Massachusetts teachers' salaries have increased by $25,939 on average between 2002 and 2016. In contrast, Rhode Island's teachers' salaries have only increased by $17,776.
Related Slideshow: 2017-2018 RICAS ELA Rankings for “Meeting or Exceeding Expectations”
The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) released performance results on November 29, 2018 for students in grades 3 through 8 on the Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System, or RICAS. The 2017-2018 school year was the first year of implementation for the RICAS, which is the Rhode Island administration of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), the assessment tool of the nation’s highest-performing state for public education.
Data was suppressed to "ensure confidentiality" for Urban Collaborative and the RI School for the Deaf because greater than 95% of students did not meet expectations; data was suppressed to "ensure confidentiality" for DCYF because the minimum reporting size of ten was not met.
Below are the rankings of school districts -- and charter schools -- with the data provided by RIDE.