This fall, 20 principals will partner with Hasbro and the National Institute for School Leadership to deepen their leadership abilities. Later, Rhode Island superintendents will engage in a similar training program with CVS and the state Department of Education.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As Rhode Island Education Commissioner Ken Wagner enters his third year he discussed some of his priorities for the coming school year.
Shared leadership
Wagner said his predecessor, Deborah A. Gist, had done a lot of great work around setting high academic standards and creating tests to measure if students were meeting them. However, he said, the power shifted to the Department of Education, away from where it should be — with principals, teachers and parents.
As a result, schools became more focused on testing than teaching.
“I had way too much power,” Wagner said in an interview Friday.
Wagner is committed to restoring authority to the adults closest to students because that’s where change begins.
This fall, 20 principals will partner with Hasbro and the National Institute for School Leadership to deepen their leadership abilities. Later, Rhode Island superintendents will engage in a similar training program with CVS and the state Department of Education.
“Both Hasbro and CVS each have a sophisticated talent pipeline,” Wagner said.
Principals will ask themselves, “How do you manage change?” and “How do you evaluate student progress?” The mission is to develop a deep bench among principals, many of whom have been trained how to run a building but not lead reforms.
A return to rigor
Wagner said last year was devoted to making sure that all students had access to Advanced Placement courses, college credits and free SATs and PSATs.
This year, it’s about a return to rigor.
“It’s easy to lose sight of the school’s instructional mission,” he said. “Rigor has to start with building leadership and that’s not a single person. It’s shared with teachers, parents and students.”
Although Rhode Island has set high standards, called the Common Core, not all schools have access to high-quality curriculum. Rhode Island has joined numerous other states to talk about what constitutes quality curriculum.
For the past 5 to 10 years, Wagner said, a reformer was someone who fought with someone. Gist was always doing battle with the teachers’ unions or parents who resented the focus on testing.
Wagner, however, believes that exciting work comes from collaboration, not conflict.
Charter schools
Achievement First’s plans to more than triple its enrollment was the biggest battle of the past year, pitting the Providence public schools, who feared the loss of public school aid, against the out-of-state charter network, which pointed to improved student test scores.
Three other charters submitted plans to expand last year. Two new charter applications were also introduced. The state Department of Education recommended against their approval.
Now all five applications have been submitted again. Some critics say RIDE had no stomach for approving them last year in light of the fierce opposition to Achievement First’s expansion plans.
Wagner said that isn’t true: “They didn’t meet our quality standards before.”
He defended his support for Achievement First, arguing that competition has been good for the traditional Providence public schools.
“This is about putting a healthy pressure on the system,” Wagner said. “The mayor of Providence indicated that he was not going to increase funding” for the pubic schools. “Three weeks after the Achievement First decision, the mayor announced that he was increasing funding.”
“I personally hope that students stay in the Providence school system,” Wagner said. “Providence is doing good work. I want Providence to be the jewel of our state.”
School accountability plan
Rhode Island submits its new school accountability plan to federal officials in September. So far, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been heavy-handed in her feedback to states. Wagner isn’t worried, however.
Rhode Island’s plan will continue to test students in reading and math in grades three through eight, but it will now use the highly regarded Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test. High schools students will be tested once, using a nationally recognized test like the SAT.
The state education department will also develop “report cards” for every public school that will include information on attendance rates for teachers and students, out-of-school suspensions and data about the learning environment — Do students feel safe? Are they engaged?
[“Source-providencejournal”]
