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April 2008
R.I. education commissioner leaving in 2009
Posted Friday, April 11, 2008
By Jennifer D. Jordan
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Peter McWalters, one of the nation’s longest-serving state education commissioners, will step down next year — a decision that follows a month of closed-door discussions among Governor Carcieri, McWalters and the state board that oversees public education about whether to extend his contract.
Yesterday, Robert G. Flanders Jr., chairman of the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, announced the Regents had agreed to extend McWalters’ contract by six months, expiring June 30, 2009. Last month, McWalters had informed the board that he would not seek a two-year extension of his contract, which would have expired this Dec. 31, according to a news release from the state Department of Education.
By the time he leaves next year, McWalters will have been the state education commissioner for 17½ years, overseeing numerous changes, including a new high school diploma system, the implementation of statewide testing under the federal education law No Child Left Behind, and initiatives to boost middle school performance.
Flanders thanked McWalters, 61, for his service and his leadership, but Flanders also acknowledged a growing frustration that Rhode Island’s education system continues to trail national averages on standardized tests.
Flanders said he plans to assemble a search committee “immediately” to find a new commissioner “who is prepared to take the state to the next level of reform and change and get us to where we need to be.”
“We are far from getting into the Promised Land in terms of where K-12 education is concerned and we need a new leader who will get us there,” Flanders said in a phone interview. “None of us are satisfied with where we are now. So all the good things we are doing are fine, but it’s not enough. We need to get to an even better place, and our new commissioner will be the person to lead the way.”
Discussions about McWalters’ contract began when the Regents met in executive session after their regularly scheduled March 13 meeting, which Flanders missed due to illness. Since then, Flanders, McWalters and Carcieri have met, and the Regents have privately discussed how much longer McWalters should stay on, all agreeing to the six-month extension, Flanders said.
Supporters call McWalters a nationally recognized visionary who has called for greater accountability from schools and teachers and has led the state through a series of major education reforms, despite limitations on his powers and diminishing state resources. Critics say that despite some gains, he has not done enough to raise the test scores of Rhode Island students and the time is ripe for change.
McWalters assumed the state’s top education job in January 1992, and ranks among the top five longest-serving commissioners currently serving around the country. He earns about $149,000 a year, and the state pays another $22,500 a year into his retirement account, as he is not part of the state pension system.
McWalters’ fifth three-year contract, which was set to expire Dec. 31, 2007, came up for review last spring by the Regents. But when former Chairman James A. DiPrete was replaced by Flanders, McWalters’ contract renewal was put on hold until this year, McWalters said. His old contract rolled over another year and would have run out Dec. 31, 2008.
The Regents will vote on the matter at an April 23 meeting held at 4 p.m. at the state Department of Education, 255 Westminster St.
McWalters said that he is satisfied he will have another 14 months to further several initiatives. He said he was not being forced out of his job earlier than he wanted to leave.
“The system has cycles, and this keeps me here through the next school year and the next legislative session,” McWalters said in an interview in his office. Discussions about his contract “really were about how much longer do I want to stay and what do I want to get done,” he said.
McWalters said his priorities include: revising middle and high school regulations to further the state’s new diploma system; updating the state’s basic education plan; dealing with teaching issues such as implementing a more rigorous evaluation process; and more intensely intervening in struggling school districts — Providence and Central Falls.
Standardized test scores for elementary and middle school students — particularly low-income students in urban districts — have steadily risen over the past three years, after the state, along with Vermont and New Hampshire, developed grade-level expectations and tests aligned with the new expectations. The results of new high school tests, which rolled out last October, were sobering, with just 22 percent of 11th graders proficient in math and 61 percent proficient in reading, although education officials say they expect to see those scores rise in the coming years.
Supporters of McWalters, including several regents, charter school leaders, union officials and an organization representing principals, said the state is losing a tested leader at a time of enormous change and strain.
“We are making progress in a number of areas, and I’m concerned about a change with so many irons in the fire,” said Robert A. Walsh Jr., executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association. “He’s been leading reforms and fighting larger battles with fewer resources, and when you weigh that all together, he’s done a remarkable job.”
Valerie Forti, president of the Education Partnership, a business-backed nonprofit advocacy organization, says McWalters should not be “the fall guy” for failures in education, “because the problem is much bigger than one person.” Forti said the Regents and lawmakers need to do more to push key education reforms, including redesigning teacher contracts. Forti also warned that McWalters’ replacement will face the same obstacles and finance battles.
At the same time, Forti said, a new person will bring new energy and vision.
“We’re not going to have one person come in and be a white knight and have the perfect thing happen,” Forti said. “On the other hand, could Peter have moved more forcefully on some things? Perhaps. He was able to get some things accomplished. But he was not moving as fast as the governor and now this Board of Regents wanted him to.”
Small donations making a big difference in schools
Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — A middle school teacher bought eight Scrabble Junior games for her classroom. A librarian purchased $400 worth of Japanese graphic novels. And an elementary school teacher has used her grant to launch a family reading program.
None of these projects would have been possible without DonorsChoose.org, a national Web-based giving program that matches individual donors, called citizen philanthropists, with teachers. Charles Best, the organization’s founder, launched the program in Rhode Island at October at Fortes Elementary School.
The mission of DonorsChoose is to connect small donors to worthy public school projects.
By early this month, Providence teachers had received almost $30,000 for school projects and Rhode Island had received almost $50,000. The schools don’t actually get the money. Donors-Choose buys the material and ships it to the teachers. In return, students write a thank-you note, take a snapshot of their project and mail the letter to Donors-Choose, which sends it to the donors.
Donors don’t have to be a big spender to make a difference. Donors can fill the entire request, which is posted online, or a small portion. No gift is too small and teachers can apply for as many grants as they wish.
For cash-strapped school districts like Providence, these grants pay for some of the little extras that might otherwise come out of teachers’ own pockets.
At Carnevale Elementary School, Ann DePedro spent $500 buying costumes so her third graders could perform small plays based on the books they are reading in class. The costumes ran the gamut from kings and wizards to dragons and angel wings.
“I used to make things out of paper plates,” DePedro said. “It took a lot of time and it wasn’t nearly as fun. I had five students who weren’t making it before. Now they are.”
At Charles Fortes Elementary School, Allyssa Taylor applied for $700 to launch a backpack program in which students bring home books they can read with their parents. Students will be given journals and materials with which to illustrate characters or scenes from the narratives.
“I’m really trying to make a connection with home,” Taylor said. “I want my children sharing literature and talking about it. Without DonorsChoose, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.”
Teachers at Fortes have successfully applied for a total of $4,072 for a number of projects, from printer ink to a special reading table. Taylor said that her colleagues are “on fire,” adding that this program is making a “huge difference.”
Joy Cervoni bought Scrabble Junior games for her eighth graders, most of whom are struggling readers. In just a few weeks, her students’ vocabulary has noticeably increased, she said.
“These kids are beaten down,” she said. “Now it’s amazing. They are seeing things on the Scrabble board that I don’t see.”
Like Cervoni, who spent $750 of her money on education materials this year, many teachers dig into their own wallets to pay for supplies.
Last month, DonorsChoose, taking advantage of a Rhode Island Foundation grant, offered an incentive to encourage more grant applications: the first 50 Providence teachers who submitted a proposal between March 12 and March 19 automatically received $100 toward their project.
Parents float plan to renovate West Broadway school
Posted Friday, April 4, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — When West Broadway Elementary School closed last summer, it felt like a death in the family to many neighbors, parents and students who attended or lived near the turn-of-the-century building in Federal Hill.
After evaluating several design proposals and taking into account the value of preservation, community schools and cost-effectiveness, a committee of parents and neighborhood activists is recommending an $18.1-million renovation.
The moderate-scale renovation, developed by David R. Finney, president of Design Partnership of Cambridge, Mass., would include a separate exit for younger children, which addresses the fire code violation that forced Supt. Donnie Evans to close the school. That renovation alone would cost about $90,000.
“A huge part is that we think this is the most affordable option,” said Kari Lang, executive director of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association and a member of the school task force. “We saw the value of having a neighborhood school and saw how much parents and teachers did, as well. If we can renovate the school so it’s a 21st-century learning environment, that’s a plus.”
The saga of the West Broadway School began in February 2007, when Evans announced that the school building had to be closed because it violated the state fire code, adding that the fire marshal had refused to grant any more variances. Outraged parents and neighbors packed School Board meetings in protest, claiming the neighborhood school was a treasured landmark, an island of stability in a rapidly changing neighborhood. Families described the school as a warm and welcoming place that made their children feel special.
A handful of parents took the district to court, filing an appeal with Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education. Although their efforts to keep West Broadway open failed, the community did persuade Evans to move the entire staff to the school’s new location in the Del Sesto Middle School building on Springfield Street. The elementary school now shares space with students from Springfield Middle School.
In response to criticism that he kept parents in the dark, Evans formed a task force composed of parents, teachers and neighbors, who have spent the past four months studying whether to reopen the West Broadway building and, if so, what kind of school it should be.
Last winter, Finney was hired by the Providence Preservation Society, which concluded that renovation would cost less than new construction, estimated at $196 million. According to Finney, there is inherent value in the preservation of sound and architecturally significant buildings. The question, he said, is whether a historic building can be renovated in such a way that it offers the same education value as a new building.
The Finney design would keep the school’s original footprint and its original mission as a K-5 building with room for 450 children. Lang said that the beauty of this plan is that it can be expanded to include an addition with room for three pre-kindergarten classrooms. It is also flexible, with the possibility of expanding to a K-8 school.
“Overwhelmingly, in meeting after meeting, the community has said it wants its children returned to its neighborhood school,” the task force said. “Parents, teachers and neighbors value a school with a past, with historic detail that comforts, as well as a community school that is within walking distance from all parts of the neighborhood.”
Dual-language program pays big dividends at Lima Elementary
Posted Friday, April 4, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — More than two thirds of the third graders at Alfred Lima Elementary School passed the statewide reading test, one of the strongest scores for that grade in the district.
What makes this score particularly significant is that out of the 34 third graders who took the New England Common Assessment, 13 are primarily Spanish-language speakers, and 8 of those students tested at or above proficiency in reading. Across the district, only 21 percent of English-language learners scored proficient on the third-grade reading test and 41 percent of all third-graders did so.
The school’s principal and staff say that the scores confirm that the dual-language program at Lima is working. According to Principal Jose Valerio, research has shown that a child who is literate in one language is more capable of mastering a second language.
The dual-language model works like this: all students in kindergarten through third grade spend half of the year learning in Spanish, which, for many students, is their native language, and the other half learning in English. Students switch from one language to another on a weekly basis. Next year, Lima will expand the program to include grade 4 and will continue to add a grade until the program is offered school-wide, kindergarten through grade 6.
“One language supports the other,” said Rebecca Box, of Dorcas Place, which runs after-school programs at Lima. “As children get stronger in Spanish, they begin to transfer that learning to the other language.”
Although Lima introduced a dual-language program 10 years ago, it existed in name only. In 2004, the school invited experts from Johns Hopkins University to help staff rethink the program, and the researchers suggested that the school adopt the so-called “50-50” model that Lima uses today.
The beauty of this approach is that it allows students to retain fluency in their native language while mastering English. It also honors the child’s native language and culture at a time when the United States faces a shortage of adults with proficiency in languages other than English. Box said that immigrant parents are delighted that their children will remain conversant in their native tongue.
Language preservation is important to a family’s identity, especially as immigrant families struggle to adapt to an unfamiliar culture. And because the family’s native language is valued, parents are more comfortable coming to school and asking about their child’s education.
Children in a dual-immersion program also pick up a second language much faster than those in a traditional bilingual education classroom.
“The kids are using language to learn language,” teacher Robert Prignano said. “In a typical bilingual classroom, it takes five years to exit to an all-English classroom. Here, by the end of kindergarten, students have had more than twice as much instruction in English.”
As Valerio put it, “We like to think that our kids are ahead of the game.”
Prignano said that students who enter the program after first grade have to pass a test to show that they are capable of working in both languages: “We don’t want children to come into classes where other children are more advanced than they are.”
Because students aren’t learning English from the radio or television, they are learning academic or grammatically correct English, according to first-grade teacher Laurie McKenna-Therrien.
For dual-language teachers, the program presents a unique opportunity to collaborate with colleagues on classroom instruction. At Lima, teachers not only meet across the language divide, they meet across grade levels. The goal is to create a seamless flow between English and Spanish classrooms so students don’t repeat material as they move from English to Spanish instruction.
Teachers say that the dual-immersion experience is deeply satisfying, according to Tracy Carcamo, who teaches kindergarten at Lima Annex, which is part of the Lima complex.
“One day, the light goes on and the child says, ‘Wow. I can do this,’ ” Carcamo said. “The NECAP scores show that a child who is learning two languages can outperform the child who is learning one language.”
“This gives children a feeling of confidence,” said McKenna-Therrien. “It really makes them feel more successful at school.”
Even the assistant principal of Lima Annex, Roseclaire Bulgin, is learning Spanish as part of her ongoing professional development.
“It gives children such a great foundation in both languages,” she said. “I wish my son could have had dual language.”
Because the program requires much more one-on-one instruction than the average classroom, teachers have asked the school administration to reduce class size in earlier grades from 26 to 20 students — a request that will be hard to satisfy during these fiscally troubled times.
Although dual-language instructors are able to meet during weekly common planning periods, they also would like additional time set aside to coordinate instruction across languages and subject areas.
Parents’ group takes teacher bumping issue to the Statehouse
Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Legislation that would make it impossible for school districts to lay off teachers purely on the basis of seniority was expected to be heard before the Senate Committee on Education this afternoon.
The proposal was written by members of the East Side Public Education Coalition, a parents’ group, and is being sponsored by Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence. Sam Zurier, a lawyer and member of the East Side coalition, said his group decided to take on the issue of bumping after it became a topic of concern at a summer education forum at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School.
At a meeting with Supt. Donnie Evans in early February, teachers sounded off about bumping, the process by which teachers with more seniority displace those with less. In one case, three teachers were hired on the same date. In a process called a tie-breaker, each teacher was assigned a number and the number that was plucked from the mix won the job.
Other teachers described their frustration at not knowing whether they will return to the same school or the same classroom from one year to the next. Because of the budget crisis this year, even senior teachers are losing their classrooms. In some smaller schools, it isn’t unusual for the principal to lose a third of the staff, which makes it difficult to build a shared culture.
In February, more than 600 teachers received pink slips, although only 66 will actually be laid off. Critics of the process say that it not only demoralizes teachers, but also disrupts the learning that takes place in the classroom, with students as the ultimate victim.
The legislation would repeal a 1946 state law that establishes seniority as the primary criteria for teacher re-assignment. (School districts also have to take into account a teacher’s certification.) Seniority would be replaced by a teacher evaluation process in which the state Department of Education would be asked to develop statewide teacher standards.
According to Zurier, the principal would be responsible for evaluating a teacher’s performance, although the bill’s proponents are also open to a peer evaluation conducted by teachers.
The legislation, which is modeled after Massachusetts law, would permit teachers to be dismissed if they fail to satisfy the state performance standards. The Providence School Board, acting on the recommendation of the superintendent, currently has the power to fire a teacher.
“Principals should be able to make that decision,” Zurier said yesterday. “They are the ones responsible for managing the staff in their buildings. They have to be able to develop a faculty [that] believes in their mission.”
Under current law, a teacher can’t be dismissed for any reason other than incompetency, incapacity, conduct unbecoming a teacher or insubordination. The Zurier bill would add another reason: failure to satisfy teacher performance standards.
Under the proposed legislation, a teacher could appeal his or her termination to an arbitrator, which is modeled after the appeals process in Massachusetts. But Zurier said his group would be willing to delegate that responsibility to the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education or its appointee. Currently, appeals go before a hearing officer with the state Department of Education.
Earlier this year, state education Commissioner Peter McWalters agreed that there is an urgent need to provide more stability in teaching staff, especially in large school districts, where bumping can affect dozens of teachers. He also said that a regents’ task force is looking at examples of effective teacher evaluations, including those currently used by local school districts. But McWalters said he would not impose a one-size-fits-all criteria on school districts, adding that the regents will establish a set of standards that districts can use as a guideline.
According to Zurier, the East Side Public Education Coalition is willing to tweak the bill’s language to make it more acceptable to educators and legislators. The main thrust of the bill is to start a conversation that addresses the problem of bumping and its impact on school stability and effective instruction.
Mr. Collins is Cool
Posted Tuesday, April 1, 2008
By Linda Borg
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — When Adelaide High School opened last fall, the music program consisted of a battered drum set and $500.
But Adelaide has what many other high schools don’t: Ted Collins, a teacher who calls music his calling, his reason to live. When Collins was a child, he wanted to be one of two things, a musician or a priest. He chose music and there are plenty of students, from Westerly to Providence, who are glad he did.
“I love my job,” he said. “It’s my life.”
When the drums, dusty from years of disuse, arrived at Adelaide in the fall, some 50 students appeared from out of nowhere and clustered around the set, eager to play. Before long, several teachers had donated keyboards, someone else donated an acoustic guitar and a bass guitar, and then last month, a woman from Cranston gave her baby grand piano.
Slowly, piece by piece, Collins has put together the makings of a high school band — allowing 10 students to jam together for the first time. Some students hadn’t played an instrument since fourth grade, when the district, strapped for cash, dropped art and music programs in middle school. Another young man, however, has been playing the drums for 13 years; in fact, he plays keyboard and drums every Sunday at his father’s church.
“If they had an all-music school,” said the drummer, 16-year-old Derrick Jones, “I’d be in it.”
Collins led the group through a short blues riff in the G chord.
“Hold on a minute,” said Collins, wearing his trademark sweater printed with a musical score. “Let the piano players have a solo on the D chord.”
Collins reminds visitors that this is the first time these teenagers have played together as a group.
“I have to keep reminding myself to keep things in perspective,” he said. “If this is what they sound like after only five months, imagine what they’ll sound like in four [more].”
Collins stops them in mid-beat.
“Good,” he said. “What’s another way we can vary the beat?”
“Quarter notes?” one of the guitar players said.
“Right.”
The band runs through the riff again and again. By the end of class, Jones is doing a drum solo and the guitars have learned to mix up the beat. The band sounds tight, like they’ve been jamming together for a while.
COLLINS IS A NATURAL LEADER. He knows when to let the students loose and when to rein them in. His own enthusiasm for the blues is contagious. And he knows that he is starting from scratch.
“My job is to get them up to speed,” he said during an earlier interview. “I’m teaching them junior high school level music right now. These kids haven’t had music since fourth or fifth grade.”
When school began, Collins asked each student to create his own CD, something that would reflect their favorite artists. Their selections — rap and hip-hop — came as no surprise to Collins, who knew he had his work cut out for him.
His students didn’t recognize the rock ’n’ roll giants, like Elvis and Chubby Checker, not to mention jazz legends such as Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis.
And so he began at the beginning, bringing in CDs of Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He put up posters of them and photographs of himself playing with a couple of big-name bands. Before long, everyone was working on an instrument, using lesson plans written by Collins during his many years of teaching.
Word got out fast. Mister Collins was cool. This class was fun. Teenagers started dropping into Collins’ class who didn’t belong there. One student, who lives in a group home and had known nothing but failure in school, began showing up early to play the drums.
COLLINS’ GOAL is to have his students playing the blues by the end of the year. Ultimately, he wants to form an all-state blues band that can play at games and student assemblies and eventually perform in public.
Collins has his own 10-piece band, the Ted Collins Band, which plays a little bit of everything and includes graduates of the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston. When he taught in Westerly, his band was one of the best high school bands in New England, opening for the Count Basie Band.
Collins describes turning teenagers on to music like watching children opening their Christmas presents. Even the most street-wise teenager softens when he plays his first bass note.
John Craig, one of two assistant principals, said Collins is giving these students a chance to be successful at something, in some cases, for the first time in their lives. It is the carrot that draws some teenagers to school in the first place.
“It’s given them hope, another outlet beyond the streets,” Craig said. “Mr. Collins has opened the door and said, ‘Let’s jam.’ ”
“The enthusiasm that Mister Collins brings to this class has had a tremendous impact on attendance,” said Principal Robbie Torchon. “The turnaround in attitude will translate into academic improvement. These students want to rap, to read, to explore the biography of artists.”
COLLINS HAS ALSO BROUGHT the real world of music inside the classroom, inviting friends like Rick Andrade and Chops Turner to speak to his students about the hard road they traveled to get to where they are now. One of the bands hailed from Cuba and their language and rhythms spoke to the largely Spanish-speaking audience of students, many of whose families come from the Dominican Republic.
At the beginning of class, students move to their various instruments with little prompting. Two girls sit behind the drums as Collins shows them the basics. Four young men begin tuning their guitars. The more experienced players help the newcomers. Every quarter, they rotate instruments.
Asked why they like music class, 14-year-old Jezebel Baez said, “We get to play music and be loud.”
“You can be creative.”
“The stress goes away,” a young man said.
At the end of class, Collins thanks his students for coming.
BUT ADELAIDE HIGH SCHOOL NEEDS HELP.
Many of the school’s instruments are in need of repair. The yellowed keys on the baby grand are uneven, like rippled carpet. Still, the students gather round and can’t resist plucking a few notes.
“We need trumpets, horns, clarinets,” Collins said. “We need guitars.”
Meanwhile, his students are already making music, and, while it may not sound celestial yet, it sounds like the real thing.
As Torchon put it, “Now, we sound like a high school.”
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