The state takeover began with a bombshell report from a team of academics. In 2019, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education visited Providence’s public schools and declared them in crisis.
They described the leadership system as “overburdened with multiple, overlapping sources of governance and bureaucracy.” They called the school culture “broken” and found damaged buildings “that reduced seasoned members of the review team to tears.” They also expressed concern that 90% of the district’s students were not proficient in math and 86% were not proficient in English Language Arts.
“It was labeled by Johns Hopkins one of the worst school systems that they have ever been into, and they have been into schools in Appalachia,” said Angélica Infante-Green, commissioner of the Rhode Island Department of Education, who authorized the report and led the subsequent state takeover of Providence’s public school system.
Seven years later, after an unexpected end to the takeover this summer, the results have left many parents, teachers, and politicians underwhelmed.
Surveys the school district conducted show that the share of parents with a positive view of the school system decreased during the takeover. Student enrollment in traditional public schools fell significantly, from 23,955 to 19,824, as more students switched to charter schools.
Test scores improved modestly in a few categories, and declined in others.
Administrators tout achievements like improving the graduation rate, expanding AP and vocational course offerings, unifying curricular materials across classrooms and expanding the number of professional development days, but many teachers remain skeptical that the changes are meaningful or long-lasting.
“What was the state takeover about?” said Laura Almagno, a high school English teacher and vice president of her union. “Is it something tangible I can see in terms of student growth with ELA and math? No.”
A scorecard to judge the takeover
When the takeover began in 2019, Infante-Green’s first step was to hold dozens of community meetings to solicit ideas for a turnaround plan. With input from parents, educators and students, RIDE drew up a scorecard of 43 quantifiable goals by which to measure the takeover’s success.
Gabe Long is one of the parents who got involved in the new community engagement process. He and his family live in Providence’s Armory District, a neighborhood of colorful 19th-century homes near a sharp class divide on Cranston Street. When his oldest child reached school age, Long and his partner enrolled them in the neighborhood public school, even though RIDE had given the school the lowest possible rating.
“There were not a lot of people who we knew from the playground or from the neighborhood who were making the same choice as we were,” Long said.
But Long met like-minded parents during his visit to Asa Messer Elementary School, who vouched for the school’s culture and staff. By joining a citywide parent advisory council, Long said he hoped to have an outlet to raise any issues he noticed.
Initially, Long said he was happy with the updates he received about damaged school buildings being replaced and renovated—the same ones that shocked Johns Hopkins researchers a few years earlier. But he said district leaders rarely sought proactive advice on how to address challenges in schools.
“It was all, ‘Here's this report about how great we're doing. Any questions?’” Long said. “It didn't feel like there was actually any feedback happening.”
Long also saw the department struggling to meet the academic goals laid out on the scorecard. Citing declines in student achievement during the pandemic, Infante-Green extended the takeover in 2024.
As recently as this spring, Long said she was talking about extending it again, until a shocking newsletter landed in his inbox.
“They were saying that they hadn't achieved what they wanted,” Long said. “And then for, as far as I can tell, political purposes, they reversed that position and decided to give the schools back a year early.”
The department published a celebratory final report on the takeover in July as the mayor and governor were deep into struggling re-election campaigns. In an interview, commissioner Infante-Green said the takeover was an impactful intervention that changed people’s minds about what was considered possible.
“We have fixed a system that was broken,” Infante-Green said.
RIDE‘s report, however, never mentioned the scorecard with the takeover’s original 43 goals. An updated copy, shared in response to a request from Ocean State Media, showed the takeover met just 10 of the 43 goals. It fell short on all six student-achievement metrics on Rhode Island’s standardized tests and the SATs.
When pressed, Infante-Green said politics influenced the decision to end the takeover this year. Reforms that required the mayor of Providence’s support had stalled, she said, leaving state education officials feeling thwarted. Then, she said, Mayor Brett Smiley worked out a timeline for ending the takeover with Gov. Dan McKee.
The track record on state takeovers
Infante-Green said the scorecard no longer fairly assesses the takeover’s success because the pandemic and politics prevented it from working as well as it should have. But nationwide evidence from other state takeovers of local schools suggests what happened in Rhode Island is typical.
Domingo Morel, a political science professor at New York University and author of Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy, said more than 130 state takeovers have occurred since the first in Jersey City in 1989.
“Out of all of the school districts that have experienced a takeover,” Morel said in an interview, “we might look at one or two that have shown some significance, but the majority of them we don't see improved gains.”
Morel said state takeovers suffer from a fundamental contradiction: to change student outcomes, leaders need full community support so academic goals are taken seriously in the classroom and at home; but takeovers remove power from local people and give it to state officials.
In Providence, where Morel graduated from Central High School, he said this power struggle intensified familiar rivalries between teachers, administrators, and politicians, ultimately undermining the takeover’s ability to make transformative change.
“The bigger story here is how these relationships, which are crucial to building strong, sustainable, nourishing systems of education, actually were worsened by the takeover,” Morel said.
A troubled start
In the first weeks of this school year, the district superintendent’s three highest-ranking employees have resigned. The School Board is revolting against its president. And as a form of protest, students showed up at a recent board meeting wearing clown makeup.
At the classroom level, Almagno, who teaches English Language Arts at the Providence Career and Technical Academy, said the takeover introduced an unhealthy pressure to improve certain metrics, like the graduation rate.
She said a student showed up two days before graduation after missing nearly every class that year.
“The principal came to my room and said, ‘What can he do to make up the work?’" Almagno said. “I was stunned.”
Almagno said the student wrote a single essay with an adult’s help that day, and graduated two days later. A school district spokesperson, Alex Torres-Perez, said administrators would need to review the student’s record to verify the story, but that this is not acceptable protocol.
RIDE reports that Providence’s high school graduation rate rose from 73% to 79% during the takeover, but Almagno said numbers like this can distract from fundamental challenges the takeover failed to address.
RIDE’s takeover of the Providence schools ended at the same time as a state takeover in Central Falls that lasted 35 years.
In the final year for both takeovers, the Rhode Island General Assembly held a series of hearings about them. Ultimately, the legislators decided to prohibit RIDE from ever leading another citywide takeover.
