What others are saying about our “Closing The Gap” Educational study

Visit the Closing The Gap home page here …

Our Closing The Gap study has struck a cord with parents and students, as well as organizations either supporting or resisting comprehensive educational reform in Rhode Island.  Below is a sampling:

SUPPORTERS

Rhode Island Statewide Coaltion (RISC) commends our think tank for bringing forth a significant education study

The RI Statewide Coalition (RISC) is commending the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a locally run reform-oriented think tank, for bringing forth the results of a wide ranging education study of Florida public schools which shows significant education gains can be made by non-English speaking, lower income urban students if the right curriculum reforms are enacted. RISC is also citing the study as evidence that the proposal to site two charter run Mayoral Academy schools in Providence deserves the chance to go forward.

“This study reveals that low income and minority students in our own state attending low performing schools in certain urban areas have a true chance at improving if aggressive reforms are supported and alternative options are allowed to grow,” states RISC Executive Director Harriet Lloyd. “If the jumps in test scores and overall performance improvements in key areas can occur for the most disadvantaged students in Florida’s public schools, why can’t they occur here? Improvements are slowly taking hold here under Commissioner Gist but she needs continued support and alternative school options need to be expanded.”

The study, called “Closing the Gap”, traced the gains made by overall low income students and by specific groups of Hispanic students in Florida public schools over the period of a decade starting in the year 2000. A wide ranging series of reforms which brought results included improved teacher performance and accountability; a transparent A to F grading system for individual public schools for better parental awareness; strong support for charter school options; and a ban on social promotion; among other policies. Test scores in core subjects like reading and math improved over the decade by up to 25%. By contrast, according to the study, overall test scores for Rhode Island students improved just 5% during the same time period.

Among other findings, the study’s authors say the gains made by the low income and minority students serve to debunk the conventional view that the socioeconomic backgrounds of students is the central factor in chronically low performing urban schools.

 Rhode Island Tea Party

Our children are our future–are we valuing them properly?

If the essential goal of educating our young children is to help them think more clearly and logically at a young age, to give them a strong foundation in reading, writing and math–and more, to help them attain a love of learning, then why are we failing so many in RI? Why are their reading scores so low, especially when we are pouring money into educating them? Is it because of poverty, or the inability of some students to learn, or lack of parent involvement, or lack of “resources”, or language barriers? Or is there something more insidious and fundamental at play? Is our system based on protecting special interests (e.g., tenured teachers, union bosses, legislators) at the cost of a stellar education?

By contrasting Florida’s free market oriented reforms with RI’s entrenched statist system, “Closing the Gap” offers striking evidence that that RI has failed. And more importantly, it offers specific solutions: a move toward freer markets in education (e.g., school choice), justice and transparency (grading schools and school districts from A-F, rewarding better teachers–merit pay, not seniority, i.e., incentivizing success), a ban on faking success (no social promotion, no automatic tenure), cutting bureaucratic red-tape in teacher credentialing, exploring virtual education, raising academic expectations by setting more rigorous standards.

In the future, we have the opportunity to read newspaper stories about more and more of our children succeeding in school. We can make that happen if parents and concerned citizens and politicians are willing to challenge the current system, which fails so many young children, and learn from the Florida situation. The facts tell an encouraging story.

OPPONENTS

 National Education Association of Rhode Island (Larry Purtell, President)

“We do need to continue in Rhode Island to diligently work to reach out and make sure all children are educated to the highest level possible, but this is nothing more than the same rhetoric from the same people with the same agenda.”

 Examiner.com; Alexander M. Sidorkin, Education Reform Examiner

 http://www.examiner.com/education-reform-in-national/the-florida-miracle-review