May 2006

New graduation requirements will stress skills, proficiencies
Posted Tuesday, May 23, 2006

The School Board discusses the changes, which will be effective for the Class of 2008, and says the system of simply earning class credits will no longer be enough.

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- What should every Providence high school graduate be able to do?

Develop a voracious appetite for learning, said Providence School Board member Bert Crenca. Take responsibility for their future, said member Ronnie Young. Display academic competence, added Maila Touray.

This was one of the questions that members of the School Board debated during a workshop last night on the state's new graduation requirements.

The traditional high school diploma, which was based on amassing credits, will soon become a thing of the past. No longer will it be good enough for students to earn a diploma by showing up.

Starting with the 2008 graduating class, students across Rhode Island will have to demonstrate that they have certain skills or proficiencies in order to graduate, according to Brian Baldizar, special assistant to Schools Supt. Donnie Evans.

In Providence, students will have to demonstrate proficiency by passing end-of-course exams and by completing a senior project or exhibition, Baldizar said.

This new approach to graduation is driven by two things: the fact that too many high school graduates are entering college and the workplace without the skills to succeed. The state's public colleges have introduced a number of remedial courses to help students acquire basic skills in literacy and math.

The shift is also driven by the fact that the federal government, under No child Left Behind, is holding schools accountable for student performance. Schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress now face sanctions ranging from offering students school choice to takeovers by the state.

Baldizar talked last night about the national sense of urgency around high school performance. In Providence, the dropout rate has ranged from 27 percent to 38 percent during the past five years, a figure no one is comfortable with.

In meetings with teachers and students, Baldizar has been asking, "What should a graduate know and how should we measure that knowledge? How can we ensure that a high school diploma means something?"

"We need to create schools where students feel welcome," he said.

The state Department of Education, as part of its new graduation requirements, has told high schools to create advisories, small-group settings where students have a chance to get to know an adult in the building.

Schools also have to figure out a way to give students credit for skills and experiences they obtain outside the classroom -- an internship, for example.

Baldizar said schools must be able to balance the need to develop a common core of skills with the need to allow each high school to create its own mission. The Hope Arts Academy might have a different set of graduation requirements than, say, the Health, Science and Technology Academy.

Another challenge is how the district creates equity from one school to another. A student has to earn 24 credits to graduate. Baldizar said it's easier to earn credits at a school that has block scheduling than it is at a school that has traditional 50-minute periods. (Block scheduling refers to longer class periods, often involving an interdisciplinary approach to teaching.)

In other Schol Board business, a member of Brown University's Education Alliance has been hired as the School Department's executive director of high schools.

Sharon Clark, the assistant director of secondary school design at the alliance, will be responsible for supervising the city's 11 high schools. She will be paid an annual salary of $101,175, half of which will come from a grant from the Carnegie Foundation.

The position has been open since January, when Anthony Pope left Providence to take a job as assistant superintendent of the Stamford, Conn., school district.

According to the job description, the new director must be a skilled, experienced educator who has demonstrated the ability to provide strong leadership for high school reform in an urban district. The director reports to Evans.

Students' poor test scores frustrate educators
Posted Tuesday, May 16, 2006

In math, more than 50 percent of Providence students in grades 3 through 8 scored substantially below the state standard. In reading and writing, more than a third scored well below the state standard.

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Charles Fortes Elementary is the "crown jewel" of the Providence school system, according to a recent week-long evaluation of the school's classrooms.

Children are eager to learn, teachers are passionate about their craft and the principal provides strong leadership, a study found.

Then why are students performing so poorly on the latest round of state assessments?

"We don't know why," said Principal Lori Hughes. "Maybe the child needs more time. Maybe she hasn't seen the test before. Maybe it's cultural. We need to convince parents that this test is important."

Hughes is stymied by the slow pace of student achievement as measured by standardized tests.

"If you hear the level of conversation in class, you see how much the kids know," she said. "But it's not showing up in our test scores."

Deputy Supt. Frances Gallo is just as frustrated by the dismal performance of Providence students on the latest assessments, released in late March.

In math, more than 50 percent of students in grades 3 through 8 scored substantially below the state standard. In reading and writing, more than a third of the same group of students scored well below the state standard.

What's interesting, however, is that roughly a third of these students are ranked as partially proficient in reading and writing, which means they almost hit the standard.

Still, the numbers are staggering: In math, more than half of the students in grades 3 through 8 are testing substantially below the state standard.

Gallo agrees that part of the problem might be the students' attitude.

"In this culture, kids hit a question they can't answer and they give up," she said. "In other cultures, the suburbans, the middle class, they keep trying."

The child isn't to blame, however. It is the adults in the child's life, the parents and teachers, who aren't in the bleachers, rooting for their child to succeed.

"We say we have high expectations for all kids and we are striving to live it," Gallo said, "but at the individual level, we haven't bridged that gap."

There is another possible explanation for the city's poor performance: Poor children typically start school far behind their suburban peers.

"Some of children don't know how to hold a book," Gallo said. "They don't know their colors. They can't recite the alphabet.

"My grandchildren are only 2 and 4 years old and they can spot their names in writing. These children aren't brilliant. But they're from a family that constantly talks and reads to them."

Children living in poverty and children who come from homes where English isn't spoken need an extra boost. They need a word-rich environment when they are 3 and 4 years old so that they enter kindergarten with a basic understanding of words and books.

"We want them to start school full of curiosity, with a wonder of learning," Gallo said.

According to a national survey of pre-kindergarten children called Seeds of Success, children from low-income families had fewer than half the number of words in their vocabularies as children from professional families. And that gap only widens over time.

Moreover, the benefits of preschool continue well into adulthood. Those children were more likely to delay having children, graduate from high school and maintain a career.

Yet Rhode Island is only 1 of 10 states that don't offer a state-financed prekindergarten program. The state is still struggling to offer universal kindergarten to children.

But there are "adult issues" that affect what takes place in the classroom, Gallo said.

This year, sixth-grade teachers had to have a middle-school endorsement to continue teaching that grade. Gallo said the new requirement caused a mass exodus of sixth-grade teachers from middle schools. Because of the seniority clause in the teachers' contract, sixth-grade teachers wound up "bumping" some teachers who had less seniority.

Bumping is one of the most disruptive forces in the Providence schools, because in any given year, it can tear apart a community of teachers that might have taken years to develop.

Gallo said there might be more practical reasons why students didn't perform well this year. The state Department of Education introduced a new test, the New England Common Assessment Program, and it tested a much larger group of students. For the first time, children in grades 3 through 8 were tested instead of just grades 4 and 8.

"In the past, we had fourth-grade teachers who were astute at testing," Gallo said. "We need to ramp up professional development so that teachers [in grades 3 through 8] are better equipped to prepare kids for testing."

Next month, the state Department of Education expects to release its annual ranking of schools statewide. Many educators say that the rankings are a better indicator of student achievement because they show whether a school is improving over time.

Under this system, a school must hit all 21 of its targets to be classified as high performing. A school must show that each of its subgroups -- children living in poverty, African-Americans, Latino children, special-needs children and English-language learners -- are making steady improvement.

Gallo said she is confident that a greater percentage of the schools will move out of the needs-improvement category.

Hope students find inspiration at RISD
Posted Thursday, May 4, 2006

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Dave Rocha studies the Caravaggio nude, glances at a blank sheet of drawing paper, returns to the nude and looks away again.

Then, without looking at the paper, Rocha begins sketching the nude from memory, a process called "the blind contour."

He starts with the head -- a few rough circles in charcoal -- then moves to the torso, the sweep of his legs. Three minutes later, the timer rings and Rocha looks at his sketch.

His instructor, Mara O'Day, stops to critique his work.

"You're getting some pieces of the body right on," she says. "That (pointing to the figure's buttocks) is quite elegant."

Rocha is a junior at Hope High School, but in many respects, he seems much older. He talks about his art with conviction, with a sense of purpose unusual in students his age.

Rocha is one of a half-dozen students from Hope High School taking part in an after-school collaboration with the Rhode Island School of Design. Once a week, the high school juniors and seniors tromp down College Hill to a basement studio at the bottom of Washington Street.

There, they spend about 90 minutes pursuing their artistic passions with O'Day, a RISD alumnus, and Donna Charging, a student in the college's art education program.

According to Paul Sproll, chairman of RISD's education program, the studio program works on several levels: it gives teenagers a chance to explore their talents, allows them to develop a college-ready portfolio and introduces them to the college experience.

"It's an opportunity to celebrate their talent, to learn that their talent can lead to college or a career in the arts," Sproll says. "We hope it will open a window to their future."

Sproll said the program is open to any junior or senior who is prepared to work and willing to make a commitment.

Although the program is in its infancy, Rocha said he has certainly benefited from the opportunity to study at RISD.

"Hope [High] is chaotic," he said Monday. "When I come here, everything slows down."

One of the big draws of the studio program is that each student has a corner in which to draw, paint and display work. For many urban teenagers, this is a luxury that isn't readily available at home or at school.

But the program is hardly unstructured. Students have assignments; they take classes. Most of all, their work is critiqued by educators and aspiring artists.

Their first assignment was to draw a bicycle -- one of the requirements to gain admission to RISD. Rocha figuratively took the bike apart and then reassembled it as part of a ram, with the bicycle's rims transformed into the ram's horns and so forth.

The next assignment was equally quirky. Students were asked to illustrate the cover of a science fiction work, The Ragwitch, which is about a doll with demonic powers, a la Chucky. Using colored chalk, Rocha drew a series of faces with huge black holes for eyes. The end effect was beautiful, yet unsettling.

In another corner, Paul Lyons, a junior, is working on his assignment: creating several four-sided structures out of sustainable materials such as paper. Each "house" has to be assembled using a different technique. Lyons used origami to build one house, which is strong enough to hold an ashtray.

"In high school," he said, "you have to do what the teacher tells you. Here, they treat you like an adult and let you make your own decisions."

Lyons said the RISD program has helped him clarify his goals: he wants to design graphic comics and to put together a portfolio for admission to RISD's summer-long pre-college program.

When Lyons began the studio class at RISD, he had a difficult time following through on his assignments, Sproll said. "Now, he's developed a seriousness about his work."

RISD hopes to open other doors for these youths, many of whom had never set foot inside an art museum, and so the faculty have taken them to the RISD Museum as to National Portfolio Day in Boston.

For some of the students, the ultimate goal is getting a scholarship to RISD; the college offers two scholarships to eligible Hope High School graduates every year.

Meanwhile, RISD students are offering an after-school studio class to more than a dozen freshmen and sophomores at Hope who have a real interest in art and who want to improve their skills in painting, drawing, design and mixed media. That program will be expanded to three days a week next year.

The conversations that take place here between faculty and student and between small groups of students are not typical high school talk.

As Rocha sketches his nude, another teenager walks by, looks at the original pen-and-ink drawing and says, "Caravaggio, right?"

Rocha says yes.

"Yeah, you can always tell Caravaggio. He's a master of light."

Students honor music teacher with concert
Posted Thursday, May 4, 2006

Soloists, choral groups and instrumentalists will perform tonight at Brigham Middle School in memory of Linda Razza.

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Teachers and students from six Providence schools will gather tonight for a memorial concert dedicated to Linda Razza, the Bridgham Middle School music teacher who died during the first week of school.

Razza was a beloved music teacher who had been with the district for 28 years, all at Bridgham. She was 52, married and a mother of two.

Friends and co-workers said they never heard Razza raise her voice or utter an unkind word. "She saw each child as a gift," said colleague Ann-Marie D'Ambrosio.

At a time when art and music programs were falling by the wayside, Razza's annual holiday concerts, which embraced every tradition from Christmas to Kwanzaa, had become a cherished event. But she didn't stop there: she put on talent shows and hip-hop dance parties and staged an annual musical to celebrate the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Some months after Razza's death, students and teachers began to plan a spring concert to pay tribute to her dedication and spirit. The effort was organized by John Goolgasian, the district's acting fine arts coordinator, and Muriel Holfelder, a music teacher at Carl Lauro Elementary School.

"She was a wonderful person who loved her students," Goolgasian said. "She was very caring with special-needs students. She always included them in her concerts."

The event will include solo, choral and instrumental performances by students from Central High School, Bridgham, Nathanael Greene and Perry middle schools, and Pleasant View and Lauro elementary schools. The evening will conclude with a presentation to the Razza family on behalf of the school community.

The 7 p.m. concert at Bridgham Middle School is free. The school will accept donations to the Linda Razza Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Impoverished students are left behind
Posted Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Providence has the highest rate of poverty of all cities with more than 100,000 people, and many of its poor students don't share the same opportunities of suburban youths.

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Why do Providence children lag so far behind their suburban peers on standardized tests in reading, writing and math?

According to Rhode Island Kids Count, it might be because so many Providence children begin their education with three strikes against them.

Consider the following data on poverty in the capital city:

51 percent of children live in single-family homes and research has shown that such children are at greater risk of dropping out of school.

Between 2000 and 2004, 27 percent of the city's children were born to mothers who lacked a high school diploma. Studies have shown that a mother's educational attainment is a strong predictor of a child's future academic success.

A two-parent family with two children needs an income of $48,000 to cover basic living expenses. Yet the median income for a female head of household is $17,000.

The chronically dismal performance of Providence's students cannot be understood without first examining the impoverished households they come from, according to Kat Keenan, a policy analyst for Kids Count.

"There is poverty, language barriers -- so many things that we need to keep in mind before we dismiss these children as unteachable," she said. "Kids don't just leave home in the morning and forget that they're hungry."

Yesterday, Keenan presented data from the 2006 Kids Count Factbook to a group of community leaders who work with children. The forum was held at the Providence Children's Museum.

The Kids Count data confirms what most advocates already know -- that Providence is becoming a younger, more diverse city.

The city is also becoming a lot poorer. Nationally, Providence has the third highest child poverty rate of all cities larger than 100,000.

In a recent interview, Deputy Schools Supt. Frances Gallo said many Providence children enter kindergarten unable to recite the alphabet, identify colors or hold a book properly.

Yet neither the city nor the state pays for universal prekindergarten, even though studies have shown that early intervention is critical to later academic success.

Fewer than half of Rhode Island's children attend full-day kindergarten, although Providence does offer it. And only 41 percent of all financed early childhood program.

Language continues to be a barrier for many of the city's students, Keenan said. During the 2004-05 school year, 17 percent of the city's 26,400 students were learning English.

It isn't a coincidence that high school graduation rates are much lower in the core cities (Providence, Pawtucket, Newport, Central Falls, Woonsocket and West Warwick) than in the suburbs.

Nearly one out of four students in the cities missed more than 20 days of school in 2004-05, compared to 1 out of 10 statewide.

The data on graduation rates shows that in the core cities, 72 percent of the students graduated, compared with 85 percent statewide.

"The children who are most at risk of not achieving their full potential are children living in poverty," Keenan said. "Access to a quality education, from early childhood through college, is the one clear pathway out of poverty."

Keenan said that the city and state must increase access to family support programs, quality early childhood education and adult education.

"It is critical," she said, "that we consider Providence schools with an understanding of the community in which they exist."