CONGRATULATIONS RHODE ISLAND

 The Providence Journal has just announced the following:

Update: RI among 10 winning 'Race to the Top' millions

ATLANTA (AP) — The U.S. Education Department says Rhode Island, eight other states and the District of Columbia will receive money in the second round of the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" school reform grant competition. Department spokesman Justin Hamilton says the winners are: Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. The amounts of the grants are expected to be announced later.


Superintendent Gist and the superintendents, teachers and parents who have supported the application reflect the hard work and commitment to the welfare of our children. Your hard work has been rewarded. Now we have a chance to improve our educational system into the one we need to prepare them to grow, develop, mature and prepare for life in the 21st century. To those who have opposed the process for short term and regressive ideals about the role of unions and work to rule, it is time to put that behind you and join in building Rhode Island into what it can become, instead of fighting to keep it what it has become.

Again, Congratulations to those who work so hard for it and to the students will benefit from the grant.

But a word of caution, this is only the beginning. Let's make certain that the plan is followed, the results evaluated and the system is really working.

Students Win: Follow up on the Central Falls High School story

Earlier this spring the Central Falls High School situation dominated local news as the CF School Board sought to implement  the RI Protocol for Intervention, part of the requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind guidelines. The initial impact was the firing of all the teachers in the high school.

Now months later, the heat has gone out the issue. It is off the front pages and out of the local and national media. There has been progress. The teachers, all of who had been fired, will be rehired if they desire this fall. The union has accepted the conditions initially proposed by the Superintendent and School Board.

        In a recent article, Making Decisions Together: The Rebirth of Central Falls High School,,  appearing in EdWeek , Dr. Deborah A. Gist outlines the current situation and the conditions that have been agreed upon by the union and the school district. It is fair to say today that the STUDENTS are going to be the winners. Those of you who have been following this debate,  I strongly  recommend the article.

         Students are winners again as a result of the State coming up with a new funding formula for local schools which places the student ahead of the bureaucracy. State money will follow the students.

         The Rhode Island General Assembly, which is frequently the target of my criticism, deserves credit for their recent passage of a new state funding formula for the state schools districts and charter schools. According to the Providence Journal.

"The new formula links state aid to the current number of students enrolled and adds money for low-income students, many of whom have additional educational needs that the additional aid is intended to address."

         Now if only the GA would recognize that these students will need a place to go after graduation. Technical training for jobs and a more effectively and efficiently funding the State's higher education institutions might help provide them with the options they and we taxpayers deserve.

         From the economic development and employment perspective, this would generate the trained and educated labor force which  will attract industry to the state. And from tax payer perspective it might help to retain the intellectual capital and investment we are making in our schools. More jobs means more opportunity for student. More jobs mean more tax paying citizens. More tax paying citizens should means a lower burdens for everyone while increasing the State's ability to solve its fiscal crisis.