Frustrated Parents Form Advocacy Group to Combat Anti-Charter School Legislation
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Frustrated by a lack of action from the Rhode Island General Assembly on addressing Rhode Island’s broken education system combined with efforts to stop the growth of high-performing charter schools, parents from across the state have come together to form a parent advocacy group – Stop The Wait RI – to ensure their voices are heard at the General Assembly.
State Senator Maryellen Goodwin (District 1) has pushed legislation through the Senate the retroactively blocks more than 5,500 new charter school seats intended for primarily poor and urban school children. The legislation is also being strongly supported by State Senators Ryan Pearson, Sandra Cano, and Ana Quezada -- legislation that will also prohibit any new charters for three years.
Last year, Rhode Island saw an 11% increase in the number of students applying to charters. More than 10,000 children—the vast majority Black and Brown—applied for fewer than 1,800 seats. Statewide, applications have doubled over the last five years.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTA concerned parent and the group's founder, Janie Seguí Rodríguez said, “When my daughter, Nyrsalee, entered the fifth grade, she could barely write a sentence and struggled with single-digit math. For years, I pled with my local public school to provide her with the extra support she desperately needed. A low-performer in math at a young age, I was told I could only get her extra services and an Individualized Educational Program (IEP) if she was in the bottom five percent of all students. I fought, and fought, and fought – but faced resistance at every turn.”
“When my daughter entered fifth grade, her life changed—and so did mine. We transitioned her to a public charter school. The school quickly identified something was wrong, diagnosing her with an arithmetic disability and delivering the IEP our traditional public school refused to give her. Today, she is on a path to success,” said Seguí Rodríguez.
“My daughter’s story is like so many other Black and Brown students trapped in broken public schools or stuck on waiting lists trying to get into a high-performing public charter school. Public charter schools have been a lifeline for Black and Brown families across the state, but they are not celebrated at the General Assembly, they are demonized and attacked. Motivated by special interest groups, legislators file bills each year that would stop the growth or impede the operations of charters,” stated Seguí Rodríguez. “Even after the John Hopkins report, which painted a humanitarian crisis for kids trapped in Providence’s broken school system, nothing has changed. In fact, it’s more of the same.”
The Johns Hopkins report on Providence’s schools found: “Parents are marginalized and demoralized. In a system that is majority Latino, we expected to encounter multiple initiatives and programs that connect parents to the schools their children attend. That was simply not the case. The lack of parent input was striking on its own, but the widespread acceptance of this marginalization was of particular note.”
{image_2}After the release of the Johns Hopkins report Providence became a national embarrassment -- the Wall Street Journal called Providence "an education horror show — a case study in public school failure and lack of accountability.”
A GoLocal review of the performance of urban middle schools around Rhode Island found that Central Falls, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Newport and others had equally poor academic performances -- SEE SLIDES BELOW.
“A moratorium on public charter schools deliberately traps thousands of children like Nyrsalee in failing schools. As the world wakes up to systemic racism across America, the moratorium bill would protect the status quo that forces Black and Brown families into failing classrooms. It targets us,” added Seguí Rodríguez, “to actively deny our communities access to better schools is exactly what structural racism looks like. It’s by design.”
Stop The Wait RI’s board of directors information includes:
Janie Segui Rodriguez, Pawtucket Parent, Board President
Monique Halliday, Woonsocket Parent, Board Secretary
Shikenya L. Gough, Providence Parent, Board Treasurer
Shayna Debrito, Pawtucket Parent, Board Member
Crystal Jones, Providence Parent, Board Member
Concerned parents can find out more about this new advocacy group at StoptheWaitRI.org.
Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s Worst Performing Middle Schools - July 1, 2019
All numbers have been rounded. Schools listed at those in which the percentage of Fails to Meet Expectations and Partially Meets Expectations Combine for 80% for either English Language Arts (ELA) or Math.
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