PROVIDENCE – To the surprise of no one, the new Rhode Island education commissioner announced on Friday, July 19, that she would be seeking “drastic action” to have the state assume control of the Providence public schools, asking the R.I. Council on Elementary and Secondary Education to invoke its authority under a 1997 law, the Crowley Act, at its next meeting on Tuesday, July 23, at 5:30 p.m., at the PAFF Auditorium on the first floor of 255 Westminster St.

Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green made the recommendation in the form of an agenda item, with the expectation members of the Council would vote on the proposal at the meeting.

The move came as Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza held a news conference, also on Friday morning, surrounded by students, featuring parents and student speakers as well as city councilors and the Providence School Board Chair Nick Hemond, who all insisted that the voice of students and parents be included in the decision-making when the state moves to take over the school system.

The Mayor’s orchestrated event was interrupted by a Hope High School teacher, Betsy Taylor, who spoke up in an unplanned, ad hoc outburst, sharing her frustrations – with the conditions at the school, with the process now underway with plans for a state takeover, and with the inability for her voice as a teacher to be heard. [See link below to story in this week’s ConvergenceRI, “A teacher speaks her mind.”]

Gov. Gina Raimondo issued a statement shortly after the news conference by Mayor Elorza and the statement by Commissioner Infante-Green, saying: “I am supportive of the Commissioner’s recommendation that the state take a more active role to meaningfully change a broken system. I thank Mayor Elorza and the City for their collaboration as we move forward with the shared goal of ensuring that every student who attends Providence public schools has a high quality education.”

Translated, the wheels on the bus of collaboration between the Mayor, the Governor and the Commissioner may have fallen off, with Mayor Elorza now the odd person out.

Contentious and boisterous
The July 23 meeting of the R.I. Council on Elementary and Secondary Education promises to be boisterous and contentious, with Providence Public School Advocates organizing around the event, urging supporters to attend and to wear red in solidarity for three demands:

• A community decision-making role in the future of our schools

• Transparency from the Commissioner, Governor, Mayor and other leaders

• High expectations for our students and a vision beyond test scores

Without access to the conversations and decision-making being conducted behind closed doors, reporters, community members, teachers and students are left to attempt to read the tea leaves, looking for clues.

Perhaps one of the biggest clues is the fact that two key former educators from Central Falls will play central roles as the drama unfolds: Frances Gallo, the former superintendent of Central Falls schools, will be hired by the Providence School Board to serve as interim superintendent of the Providence schools; and Victor Capellan, the superintendent of Central Falls schools who replaced Gallo, has taken a new job as special advisor to Infante-Green.

Yet Hemond, when asked by ConvergenceRI at the mayor’s news conference if the state takeover would be similar to what happened in Central Falls, adamantly said that the planned state takeover would not resemble what happened in Central Falls.

Orchestrated strategy
The move by the state to take over the Providence public schools is occurring after a series of eight “listening sessions” conducted by Commissioner Infante-Green, which, in hindsight, can be see as a carefully executed public relations strategy to build support for a state takeover. [See link below to ConvergenceRI story, “The importance of being earnest about education in RI.”]

What remains unanswered are a number of critical questions about the future, once the state takes over the Providence public schools:

1. Who will provide the resources to pay for the necessary changes in the Providence public schools? Is there a corporate sugar daddy lined up to invest in the move, similar to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook investing $100 million in the Newark public schools in 2010 in the name of education reform? What kinds of commitments have been made by local and national philanthropic entities? When will such commitments be made transparent?

2. Commissioner Infante-Green has said that she will expand the use of “personalized learning” in the state, using laptops and software learning packages such as Summit Learning. How extensive will that expansion be within the Providence public schools once they are under state control? What resources will be deployed to support such an expansion? Once again, is there a corporate or philanthropic entity that has already been tapped to pay for such an initiative?

3. How much, in terms of resources, are planned to be deployed to help special education students and English language learners? What kinds of support services, in the form of social workers and mental health counselors, will be deployed by the state? Will the model of Child Opportunity Zones be resurrected?

4. What role will students and teachers have in the decision-making process? How will their voices be welcomed as part of the conversation?

5. Will the R.I. General Assembly consider a recalculation of the school funding formula that has enforced what some have called an imposition of structural racism in the Providence schools?

6. What role, if any, is the McKinsey consulting group playing in the formulation of the plans moving forward? One of the revelations in Dale Russakoff’s book, The Prize, was that then Mayor Cory Booker had McKinsey help to prepare his slide show representing how the $100 million investment from Zuckerberg would be spent.

7. What kinds of partnerships are the colleges and universities located in Providence, including Johnson & Wales, Brown, RISD, Rhode Island College, Providence College, CCRI, and the URI Providence campus, willing to take on with the public schools in the city? How much money are they willing to invest as an extension of any Payment in Lieu of Taxes program?

8. How will the issues of poverty and health equity be addressed as part of the state takeover of Providence public schools? What kinds of curriculum changes are needed to support better education outcomes? Is there too much emphasis on teaching students to achieve better outcomes on standardized tests?

9. What lessons can be learned from the RIC programs, working with parents in Central Falls, to provide them with an opportunity to continue with their education? How important is cultural competence as a skill for both teachers and administrators to possess?

10. Who will hold the state accountable for its actions to take over the Providence school system, moving forward?

Many rivers to cross
The hallmark of many of the recent government interventions under the Raimondo administration has been the reliance on corporate consultants, often funded through philanthropic donations, to provide the guidance to develop and implement new systems.

There is the Unified Health Infrastructure Project, or UHIP, which relied on a software system built by Deloitte, whose rollout in September of 2016 was an unmitigated disaster. The contract was renewed in March of 2019.

There is the Reinvention of Medicaid, the signature program in Raimondo’s first term, in which Deloitte helped to facilitate the process. The verdict is still out on the success of the program, which does not yet include an accountable entity for long-term support services under Medicaid, the largest cost in the state’s Medicaid budget.

There is the report by the Brookings Institution, laying out the future vision of renewed economic prosperity in Rhode Island, which is still being used a roadmap by CommerceRI.

In health care, there was the consultant hired for $200,000 to try and negotiate the arrange marriage between Lifespan, Care New England and Brown University, which ended in a breakdown of talks when Care New England withdrew from the process. The news of the withdrawal was greeted by a spontaneous roar of applause when employees were told of the decision by CNE President and CEO Dr. Jim Fanale.

Most recently, there is the report by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy to evaluate the conditions in the Providence public schools.

Underneath all of these initiatives is a much more complicated, encompassing question: What happens when government cedes its ability to make decisions about public policy to corporate think tanks? Whose voices get lost in the process? Does the public become disenfranchised as a result?