Are Rhode Island Students worth investing in?

In an article published on January 14th, 2010 Teachers, R.I. education chief still at loggerheads over reform, By Jennifer D. Jordan,(page 1 Section A,) some very serious issues were raised. These are and should be central to the 2010 General Assembly election.

This is a debate for the heart and mind and welfare of Rhode Island and its children that the tax payers, politicians and educational establishment can have. Either we can come to an agreement about which is really important, teacher's rights or student's best interests and their futures, or we can watch as Rhode Island becomes less and less competitive in today's world.

Let's ask some basic questions.

Why do we need students? And, Can the teachers' unions survive without them?
Why do we need teachers unions? And, Can students learn without them?

These are not chicken or egg questions.

Humanity has survived because of children, not because of teachers unions.
Society is better off because Professional Teachers are a real asset to the community. They can assist the children in learning the skills that will make them productive citizens.

But today’s Teacher unions present teachers to the community, not as professionals, but as a commodity. Teachers are treated and treat themselves, as laborers, hired to put in X number of hours at a price and required only "to work to rule." The Teacher's Union are organized on a big business vs big labor model that no longer is valid nor viable in the 21st century economic environment

Educating and training a child is NOT like cooking a BIG MAC. A manufacturing, labor/management business model is no longer appropriate for creating a 21st Century educational system or workforce.

Children do not benefit from a labor union organized to serve the interests of the membership.The unions are not a necessity for the child to learn. What children and society needs is a profession that establishes and enforces performance standards on it members for the benefit of their clients.

A 21st century educational system requires a professional teaching force with the skill and empathy to understand the individual needs of each child and how to address his or her unique needs and issues in an ever more complex world. It needs teachers who can work with parents in the interest of the child, not blackmail taxpaying parents into more benefits.

Granted, we cannot afford to do this on a one to one basis, but we can create environments where we maximize the skills that good teachers can bring to the student.

If the teachers’ unions were professional associations, such as the AMA, ABA, etc., they would be supporting and, in fact, be demanding that that their members meet high evaluation, and accountability standards. Quality performance would be their first goal, not seniority rights.

A revolutionary approach is called for to bring Rhode Island education into the 21st Century. Such an approach is being presented to us now by Education Commissioner Gist. It questions the basic assumptions of the system. But to succeed all parties must buy into the idea of finding solutions and NOT just fight rear guard actions to protect personal or special interest privileges.

The stalemate between the unions and administration over existing contracts, constructed in an age of plenty, don't do anything to prepare today's student nor address the system needs for the future. And they certainly don't help the parents or tax payer.

How long do Rhode Island children have to wait for the adults to grow up and solve the problem, not just fight over it?

Update: Providence and Foster teachers have, with reservation, joined the state in competing for the Race to the Top federal grant. NEA, and the other 36 unions including Central Falls, seem to have decided that their self interest is more important. Rhode Island students are just not worth it?

A New American Revolution???

The American Revolution began on June 10th 1772 with the burning HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

As reported in a London newspaper and reprinted in the Virginia Gazette (October 15, 1772 -- note they didn't have Twitter back then)

London, July 18

From Rhode Island we received advice that one of his Majesty's ships of war, interrupting the trade of some smugglers in that neighbourhood, the people rose up, and thinking it patriotism to resist the laws of this country, burnt the ship's boats, and carried their commerce in triumph to their own habitations.

The conduct of Rhode Islanders, on the foregoing occasion, it is thought, will be productive of much disturbance in America. If our government resents it with the spirit they ought we shall have fresh exclamations from the sons of liberty beyond the Atlantic; and if they do not, the colonies are immediately discharged from their dependence upon England. The Mother country and the colonies are now come to a kind of crisis, and one or the other must necessarily give way in the dispute. Should the former, however, relax from her just authority, she may as well resign all her dependent territories, and content herself with what is merely contained in her own island.

A year and a half later on December 16th, 1773...,

In Boston, the arrival of three tea ships ignited a furious reaction. The crisis came to a head on December 16, 1773 when as many as 7,000 agitated locals milled about the wharf where the ships were docked. A mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House that morning resolved that the tea ships should leave the harbor without payment of any duty. A committee was selected to take this message to the Customs House to force release of the ships out of the harbor. The Collector of Customs refused to allow the ships to leave without payment of the duty. Stalemate. The committee reported back to the mass meeting and a howl erupted from the meeting hall. It was now early evening and a group of about 200 men, some disguised as Indians, assembled on a near-by hill. Whopping war chants, the crowd marched two-by-two to the wharf, descended upon the three ships and dumped their offending cargos of tea into the harbor waters.

This morning I awoke to read and hear that The Kennedy Senate seat in Massachusetts had been captured by a Republican, Scott Brown, a relatively unknown.

Later I went to a breakfast meeting sponsored by the RISC (Rhode Island Statewide Coalition)for Small Business. The agenda was to unveil a strategy for the small business owners in Rhode Island to become a political force equal to their economic presents in the state. Small business represents 97% of the businesses in the state and employs 57% of the state's workers, according to RISC.

Underrepresented in the General Assembly, over-taxed and easily dismissed by the traditional powers that have ruled Rhode Island for close to a century, small business is stirring. RISC, founded in 2003, as a grassroots organization is inviting small business to flex its muscle.

This morning we witnessed a presentation of strategy and the tactical approach for small businesses to become politically active. The crowd of small business owners who attended the meeting are being asked to participate in a program designed to win back the General Assemble over the next 9 months. for the core of Rhode Island producers and employers. In turn, this will set the stage to bring about fundamental change in the state's economic policy. In turn it was suggested that this would set the state back on a course of positive economic growth and development.

Today we are seeing the true beginnings of a revolution in the New England political environment. What happened in Massachusetts will have national ramifications. But what happened this morning in Warwick, RI not far from Gaspee Point, will have immediate impact on the daily lives of Rhode Islanders.

In the coming days and weeks we will be following this revolution on this blog. Stay tuned.

Entrepreneurship is a Rhode Island Legacy

Happy New Year

Over the past year we have seen and commented on some of major issues facing Rhode Island. These are well known by now. But not enough is said about the good things arising from our heritage and our legacy. This year our resolution is to focus on the positives that are at the core of this state and which are often neglected in the political gamesmanship that is Rhode Island's favorite sport.

Here is an example of the hidden secrets that go on day to day unrecognized and unheralded. Clear Carbon and Components Inc. is a boat-building business that has survived the ups and downs of a tough economy. This Bristol company now makes a wide range of products from lightweight springs to military components to a black carbon-fiber cello owned by Yo-Yo Ma. Today, this entrepreneurial company depends on recreational boating for about 15 percent of its business. See
"R.I. boat builders stay afloat by navigating new markets — from aerospace to cellos"

The Rhode Island arts community continues to be a shining light adding to the quality of life and general welfare in the community. Even in the poor economy and its impact on the nonprofit sector, Trinity Repretory has been able to step forward during this recent cold spell and help out the homeless.



These are the types of examples we need to be seeing and we will try to bring you over the new year.

Can we afford the best?

In a time of economic crisis, when unemployment is at 12.9%, the State of Rhode island threatened to lay off a 1,000 of employees back in September, and is still facing a $200 million deficit the State has decided to hire a new Executive Director for the RI Economic Development Corporation for 1.5 times the salary of the former Executive Director.

According to the Providence Business News story

The board voted to give Morfessis a three-year contract that will pay her $250,000 a year plus benefits. The state also will cover her relocation costs and provide her with an automobile.

And according to Providence Journal, when asked about the high salary Governor Carcieri is quoted as saying.

“You want to do a national search? You want to recruit the best candidate you can find? Then you’re going to have to pay for that,”

The Journal article points out that Rhode Island has recently hired several key senior level administrative personnel. These include the President of URI, Director of Education, and now the Director of EDC at a cost of well over $1 million in salary and benefits annually.

The trend seems to be to look beyond the State for talent to bring about "needed" changes in the way we operate the State government. The big question is

Will these highly paid experts actually be able to produce value for the tax payers of Rhode Island, or are we just hiring carpetbaggers to replace the state's more traditional bag men?

In 04-30-2003 the Governor's office issued the following press release

CARCIERI ADMINISTRATION MAKES CASE FOR REINING IN COST OF STATE GOVERNMENT Administration Official Testifies that Escalating State Benefit Package Costs "Out of Whack" with Private Sector & Neighboring States

Rhode Island government is NOT a private sector company, government is PUBLIC SERVICE not PRIVATE SERVICE. Government is supposed to do the "People's or the Stakeholder's business", not the private Stockholders.

Nor is Rhode Island like Massachusetts or Connecticut. Rhode Island is more like the city of Detroit, than it is like the state of Michigan to which we have been so often compared lately. If the State Benefit package is out of whack, how does paying higher private sector salaries and benefits to a select few change this?

Are we missing something here?

Cut costs by reducing the number of $5.00/hr employee who could produce (35 hr/wk x 3 workers) 105 person hours and replacing them with one $15.00/hr person who can only produce 35 hours of work seems counter-intuitive. Will those 35 hours create greater value for the tax payer's of Rhode Island? I wonder when we read that "R.I. to close jobless benefits call center some days to catch up on claims>"

Three workers pay three tax bills, live in three homes that are taxed by their communities, support three family/households in those communities.

The leaders of this state seem to think that if you drive a 2010 BMW rather than a 2000 FORD 150 somehow or other you can have a BMW life style.

I seriously pray (and that is the right word) that these new hired guns can produce the value their inflated (in RI terms) salary and benefit packages are costing the tax payers of Rhode Island.

Can we afford the best, or is what we really need the most competent?

Economic Development and Binding Arbitration

A recent editorial in the Providence Journal Editorial: And they’ll be back warns that a major piece of legislation sponsored by the teachers' union (NEA and AFL) requiring binding arbitration between the unions and local school committees may reappear again when the RI General Assembly reconvenes next year.

The following comment on the Projo Online edition of the editorial from Ethnographer outlines the issues in the broader context of Rhode Island's economic crisis. Ethnographer's comments are quoted below with permission.

Quality education should be the issue, not Union power when the Assemble reconvenes.

Economic development does not come from higher pay and benefits. It comes from higher value production.

When the teachers unions can demonstrate that it can produce a higher value product for the community that buys their services, then they might have a basis for earning the higher wages, and benefits.

But binding arbitration has nothing to do with quality product, only raw power.

Unions serve a useful purpose when a worker group is at a disadvantage, such as the recent article about the "adjunct faculty" at URI and RIC, and the employer is in a monopoly position. But when the union is the monopoly, as they would be in a binding arbitration situation, they no longer serve a useful purpose for the consumers (the communities) which purchase their product (teachers) nor the resource (the teachers) they monopolize through their representation.

The growth of the Charter school movement demonstrates how the public is prepared to spend its education dollars on quality if given a competitive option.

At one time teaching was a "noble" profession and for some it still is seen as a "calling."

Unfortunately, today it is sold as a commodity to the communities and a job to young teachers ("cattle calls")entering the field. Meanwhile the real purpose, educating students suffers as seen in RI graduation rates.

Education is too important to the economic development and welfare of the community and to the next generation to be entrusted to the "wisdom" and monopolistic power of Union leaders and union politics.

Dog Days in RI Congratulations Providence

The dog days of the summer of 2009 have slipped into the past. But there are new Dog days in store for Providence, RI. According to a story in the Providence Business News "City gets dog show after century in MASS"

With all the bad news and controversy these days in Rhode Island it is nice to know that there are somethings going right.

According to Julie Dennehy, a spokeswoman for The Bay Colony Dog Show, “We can’t say enough nice things about the [R I Convention Center] team, as well as the mayor’s office, the & Visitors Bureau,”

Now this is great for Dog Lovers. But what about you Cat Lovers?

How about matching the Dog Lovers and help the state and city out.

Who'd of thunk that pet owners might lead the charge for economic development.

Again Congratulations to all who help bring the Dog show to Providence.

The Smart Grid by 2015 -- What does RI face?

As we debate the merits of wind, wave, and other energy alternatives, we need to be aware of the types of issues that face the electric grid and those who manage its various components.

How will different generating sources impact the grid and distribution system? What are the synergies between consumer demands and supplier capacity? What about the potential impact of electric automobiles?

In the coming years, as we, Rhode Islanders, attempt to improve our energy infrastructure,here are some of the issues we will be facing.



If Rhode Island is to work its way out of the current economic crisis, political leaders and the general public are going have to take responsibility for finding solutions to Rhode Island's energy needs. Without reasonably priced and dependable electricity to attract and keep businesses here, other efforts will suffer. The public needs to educate itself about the issues in order to make the hard decisions that will be called for in the next 5 years.