Last month, Rhode Island education commissioner Angélica Infante-Green announced that Providence Public Schools would return to local control on July 1st. Her decision came as a surprise, as Infante-Green had repeatedly said she was targeting 2027 as a likely date for a smooth transition.
Is Providence ready to reassume control of its schools after seven years of state intervention? Ocean State Media weekend host Joe Tasca spoke with John Papay, director of the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, to learn more about the risks and challenges involved in the transition.
Interview highlights
On whether the Providence School Board is ready to assume more control over the district
Papay: I think that the board has had a unique role in the past several years under state control. We will see what happens when it becomes the governing board for the school system. It feels like the district has focused pretty heavily over the past several years on centering instruction and thinking about how to focus attention on instruction in schools. And I think if that vision continues, we’ll see some of the stability that we might expect. I think that we often see in these cases – where takeover happens – shifting visions, and that becomes sort of a new reform that has to take root and takes a long time to become established.
I think at a very high level there’s alignment, but I haven’t seen from the city or school board a more detailed version of that vision. So that’s a question: What does that detailed vision look like? The city has said it has a detailed vision and I don’t know exactly what that detailed vision is.
On the risks of returning Providence Public Schools to local control
Papay: I think there are two. One is the operational expertise that’s required to run a school system. The city has spent a lot of time, it says, investing in that and building that. I think we’ll see in the fall how that plays out. I have three kids in Providence Public Schools and I’m very optimistic. I’m very hopeful that the operational expertise has been built and can continue to sustain the system.
I think a second risk is around stability. I do a lot of research in Massachusetts, and I think one of the lessons from education reform in Massachusetts and the path over the past 30 years in Massachusetts has been one of remarkable stability in terms of the policy direction of the state. And so I think there’s open questions here around, is this going to be a stable transition or a transition that leads to a lot of churn? I think that’s always a challenge when we have leadership changes and that lack of stability can be a challenge for school systems.
On the challenges facing Providence Public Schools
Papay: There’s uncertainty and likely less money coming into the system, particularly from the federal government. That’s a big challenge. I think budget instability is something that’s hard for districts to face.
Two, I think we see demographic shifts in the state where there’s just fewer kids, and so fewer kids in school. That’s a second thing that’s hard and politically hard for school systems to deal with. I think we’ve seen some of that around needs for school closures and consolidation.
Three, the instructional needs of students in Providence and across the country are increasing and part of that’s because of the pandemic, part of that’s a variety of other factors. Meeting those instructional needs of students in nuanced ways in an environment that’s more resource constrained, potentially, is particularly challenging.
On whether the state intervention in Providence Public Schools was successful
Papay: I think that there were some clear wins from the state takeover. One, there are many more schools that are new, many more schools where students are going to school in places that look like the types of schools that their peers who go to private schools or who go to suburban public schools attend. I think that’s a big win that the state has been deeply involved in. I think that the focus on instruction in the district has increased; at least, this is my view as a parent and as an informed outsider. This is a national trend, but that attention to instruction, I think, has been quite good. We’ve seen increases in test scores. We’ve seen some of these metrics moving forward, improvements in attendance at schools, despite some of the challenges that we’ve seen across the country.
