How Can the State Takeover of Providence Schools Succeed? Gary Sasse

Friday, December 16, 2022

Gary Sasse, Guest MINDSETTER™

The continuing food fight between the Rhode Island Commissioner of Education and Providence’s teachers is an impediment to improving the Capitol City’s public schools. This adversarial relationship represents contempt for both Providence students and their families. There is little hope that things will get better without both engaging a new state-local leadership team, and building an organizational infrastructure that follows the architect’s axiom that “form follows function.”

In this effort, all stakeholders, including Providence’s teachers, must be part of the solution. A Hassenfeld Institute poll conducted in January 2022, found that 72% of Rhode Island’s urban parents (Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Woonsocket) evaluated teachers as doing an excellent or good job. Just as in football, if the team is underperforming, a new coach is generally found because you cannot get rid of all the players.

It is a waste of energy to try to assign blame to the current situation, but it was exacerbated by the inability of the Commissioner to join hands with critical stakeholders.

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The takeover ran into troubled waters because the plan mandated by the Raimondo Administration and endorsed by Mayor Elorza ignored the realities of successfully running an urban school system. Going forward, for the takeover to produce the desired results, there should be a change in leadership at the top, a practical, inclusionary, and transparent organizational structure, parental involvement, and strong gubernatorial leadership.

Judging the impact of the state takeover was complicated by COVID-19. The pandemic compromised the ability of the Rhode Island Department of Education and stakeholders to fully assess the results of the takeover on the progress in student learning.

However, even before the consequences of the pandemic the seeds for the failure of the state takeover were planted.

Assigning operating responsibility for Providence schools to a State Commissioner of Education who was facing daunting statewide and organizational challenges, coupled with limited experience turning around a troubled urban school system was a recipe for failure from day one. The fact that it took months to find a superintendent should have provided evidence of the problems associated with a state education department being responsible for the care, control, and management of local schools. As James Kadamus, a former Deputy Commissioner of Education in New York, opined in 2019, “The Commissioner has the power to put strategies in place without getting embroiled in a full state takeover.”

The takeover plan was also poorly conceived because it did not afford the Commissioner with the built-in political cover needed to vet and sustain tough and sometimes controversial decisions. The type of support that superintendents usually expect from their school committees, and the chief state school officer can expect from a pro-active state board of education.

From its inception, those involved in the state takeover wanted to gain leverage in teacher contract negotiations. One justification for the takeover of Providence schools was that it could result in a more effective way to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Teachers over issues such as teaching assignments, hiring, and professional development. In the end, Governor McKee intervened in the negotiations, and the collective bargaining agreement probably did not vary significantly from what the city could have negotiated without the state takeover.

As initially conceived, the state takeover was poorly designed, Governor McKee can right-the-ship by considering the following:

- Create a state oversight board consisting of a diverse group of leaders with experience in education, finance, and community involvement, and give them the power to appoint a new school superintendent.

- Engage Mayor Smiley, teachers, and parents in the process of oversight, and

- In two years, replace the state oversight board with a local education authority.

 

Gary Sasse served as Director of the State Departments of Administration and Revenue and is the former Executive Director of RIPEC.

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