100% Proficiency of all RI fourth graders: What will
it take?
A Statewide Analysis
I. Some Good News to Sustain Us
Along the Long Journey to Proficiency
» RI Has Public Policy Agreement
» The Children’s Cabinet
» Cross-agency Collaboration Around School Success
» RI Has Unusually High Quality and Extensive Information
» The SALT Survey
RI Has Public Policy Agreement
Before we plunge into statistics that can paint a daunting picture of the challenge to RI education, note first that much foundation work has already been done to build systems that support schools and children. With representation from a broad group of stakeholders, the Governor’s Goals 2000 panel developed what is now the Rhode Island Comprehensive Education Strategy (CES). Significant portions of the CES have been written into legislation called Article 31. At the heart of the CES and Article 31 is a strategy known nationally as the "standards movement" which employs standards, assessments and accountability for results. The experience of other states shows that this strategy has a significant effect on the improvement of student achievement.
The Governor’s Office, the Legislature, the Board of Regents as well as representatives from elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, business, parents and the community agree on the strategy and direction for Rhode Island’s schools. Agreement among the breadth of stakeholders has not always been the case, and experience has demonstrated how powerful we can be working together towards common goals.
The schools can not, by themselves, overcome the challenges presented by those children who, with their families, find themselves at risk of being overwhelmed by personal, financial or social problems. In 1991 the Legislature passed and the Governor signed into law the creation of a Children’s Cabinet "to address all issues, especially those that cross departmental lines, and relate to children’s needs and services." Partnering on this Cabinet are representatives from the executive and legislative branches of the government, as well as the directors of all agencies that deal directly with children or children’s issues.
In the early 1990’s, the Children’s Cabinet focused on children’s health issues and the formation of a flexible, responsive network that could deliver high quality services to the state’s children—a daunting task in its own right. Out of this initial effort grew, among other initiatives, the nationally recognized RIte Care, a Medicaid managed care program which provides health insurance for children whose families’ incomes are up to 250% of poverty (or 2.5 times that of families who are "officially" in poverty). This program includes children above the poverty line because the "working poor," those with low-wage jobs, are the most likely to be uninsured. RIte Care has already made a marked improvement in the quality of health of RI’s children.
Cross-agency Collaboration Around School Success
In 1994 the Children’s Cabinet reshaped their goals to recognize schools as the primary interface between children and state agencies. Their new guiding goals were:
- All children enter school ready to learn;
- All youth leave school ready to lead productive lives; and
- All children and youth are safe in their homes, neighborhoods and schools.
Since that time the Children’s Cabinet has continued to develop its work with more collaboration around improving educational performance. Their conclusions about reducing juvenile justice, for example, focus on school success as the most effective prevention against anti-social behaviors.
The Cabinet is to be commended for its breadth of vision and for identifying education as the turnkey institution for improving the well-being and long-term self-determination of children. Thus, the Children’s Cabinet is already well underway to laying the foundation for an edifice of support that will help children fulfil the goals of the CES and Article 31. The task is huge, but RI is actively facing the challenge.
RI Has Unusually High Quality and Extensive Information
RI public education has entered a new era in which high quality data is regularly collected from a variety of sources. Different stakeholders are analyzing the data in ways that shed considerable new light on RI’s challenges, progress and opportunities. For example, the document at hand assembles a portrait of what we know about 4th grade education, using information gathered from student assessments, the SALT survey, RI Kids Count, the Providence Demography Initiative as well as other government information-gathering initiatives. For the first time, public policy and decision-making about education—from pre-school to graduation—can move beyond anecdotal understandings to using concrete details about children, schools and districts throughout the state. Therefore, any shortcomings noted in this report should be seen as opportunities for sustained and focused action rather than criticism or condemnation.
The SALT Survey generates an unusual bank of information because it gathers a wealth of details about the how and how well different aspects of school communities function. It is perhaps the most comprehensive set of surveys administered in American schools. Consisting of three distinct versions for elementary, middle and high schools, with different forms for parents, students, teachers and administrators, the SALT survey provides descriptions of what people want to see occur at their schools, as well as how frequently various practices do occur. According to Lynn Olson, project editor of Education Week’s Quality Counts ‘99, it provides an "incredibly rich data base" for educators to mine. The SALT Survey instruments have evolved over the past 15 years under the direction of Dr. Robert Felner and his research team, now located at the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy at the University of Rhode Island. The remainder of this report uses selected individual items and some combined items to paint a richer portrait of what education actually looks like in RI schools. Visit SALT Survey Reports for a full set of charts, tables and graphs of all SALT Survey results at the state, district and school levels for this year and last year.
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