The Valley Breeze

TOM WARD - As Washington, D.C. watches

Innovative schools in funding crosshairs as unions battle for failing status quo

"Places like Rhode Island that are thinking about under-funding charters are obviously going to put themselves at a huge competitive disadvantage going forward. So we don't think that's a smart thing for them to do, and we're going to make that very, very clear."

- U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a Monday, June 22 speech at the 9th annual Charter Schools Conference in Washington.

There is only one question all Rhode Islanders should be asking themselves at this pivotal time in our history, and that is this: How naive am I? How little do I care about our future?

Last Wednesday, the Rhode Island House Finance Committee approved the state budget it had unveiled to the public just minutes earlier. Of course, the entire process of letting you in on details of the spending plan at the last second is disgraceful enough, but that's for another day.

One surprise was that there suddenly was not the $700,000 needed for Mayor Daniel McKee of Cumberland, along with many other mayors and town administrators, to begin the new Rhode Island Mayoral Academies' first charter school in Valley Falls this coming September.

You might recall that last year, Majority Leader Gordon Fox courageously took to the House floor and fought for the school, a new charter school that would be freed from the shackles of union control. Fox, along with House Speaker William Murphy and many other Democrats, understood what McKee has known for a long time: That in Rhode Island schools today, innovation is crushed by the suffocating control of unions that limit flexibility by good administrators and teachers alike.

The status quo is killing us. It's killing our kids' futures, killing our pocketbooks, and slowly killing our state. Good teachers grab their pensions and take the first bus out of town, happy to leave the wreckage behind them. I'm not criticizing them; I'd probably do the same.

As I write this column Monday, the behind-the-scenes politicking is in full force in Providence. The House will meet to debate the budget Wednesday, and may pass it Wednesday or Thursday. From there, it's on to the Senate and Gov. Donald Carcieri's desk, where he has no power as a veto would be easily overridden by the huge Democrat majority in both houses.

I have done my small part in letting my legislators know that I support the Mayoral Academies concept, because I support the future, and I reject the failing status quo in Rhode Island public schools that the unions staunchly defend.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke to 3,200 people at the 9th annual National Charter Schools Conference in Washington D.C.

Here are a few of his quotes. (To see his entire speech click on the link in the Letters section below.) Just so you know, Duncan knows all about the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies and the fight against the union-imposed status quo. Here are his comments:

SEC. DUNCAN

"This is a time of huge opportunity, with $100 billion in new money for public education. But everyone in this room knows that money alone won't solve this problem. If we simply invest in the status quo that won't get us where we need to go. With unprecedented resources has to come unprecedented reform.

"I'm a big, big supporter of these successful charter schools, and so is the president. So that's why the priority is a $52 million dollar increase in charter school funding for our Fiscal Year 2010 budget. As part of that we want to change the law and allow successful charter schools to replicate. The idea of doing more and more one-offs just isn't going to get us where we need to go.

"We're asking states and districts to think very differently about how they do business. Your knowledge and your experience can absolutely shape they are thinking. We have a lot of money to support this work. Aside from the $5 million in Race to the Top and innovation funds, we have $3.5 billion in title one school improvement grants and we're seeking another $1.5 billion in FY2010, that's $5 billion in additional funding to support turnarounds..."

Duncan was then questioned by Seth Andrew, who will head the Valley Falls school, Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley.

SETH ANDREW: "Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here, it is an honor. My name is Seth Andrew from Democracy Prep Charter School, the highest performing public school in Central Harlem on the Chancellor's progress report and we're eager to expand and try the turnaround model, so thank you for the challenge. Our challenge actually is not only in New York, but also in Rhode Island and we would love your support in Rhode Island and states across the country for calling the elected officials and letting them know they jeopardize their stimulus funding if they don't make real change right now in legislatures like they did in Tennessee, so your political leadership right now means more than you know. And your calls to speakers of the house, majority leaders, people all over the country can make a huge difference, so I hope you'll call Rhode Island today, and states across the country to make a big difference.

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SEC. DUNCAN: I appreciate so much your leadership and your willingness to think about this turnaround model. We are fighting this on a state by state battle, that's where the battleground is. Places like Rhode Island that are thinking about under-funding charters are obviously going to put themselves at a huge competitive disadvantage going forward. So we don't think that's a smart thing for them to do, and we're going to make that very, very clear."

It's "very, very clear" what the right thing to do is. The Secretary of Education knows it; President Obama knows it. Mayor McKee knows it; the state Department of Education knows it. It's time for all of us to embrace the seeds of change that will come from the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies, or get crushed by the unions and accept their failed status quo.

Please speak out to your representative and senator for the restoration of funding.

- Ward is publisher of The Valley Breeze newspapers

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