OUR SCHOOLS: Questions swirl around charter schools in PVD takeover

With the state expecting to take complete control over the Providence School District for at least the next three years under the Crowley act, one focus has been on boosting awful test scores in the district, with one possible solution being floated around concerning the use of charter schools.

On paper, the goal of a charter school within a district is to explore new educational ideas and then pass it off to surrounding public schools.

Charter schools are public schools with the same educational requirements expected by the state. 

Right now, around six percent of total students in Rhode Island belong to a charter school, and about half of those schools are located in Providence. With a state takeover expected, Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green said once a master plan is put in place with the turnaround superintendent, more charters could be part of the solution.

“I think we have to fix what’s there. We have to give our students in our district schools an opportunity to get better,” Infante-Green said. “Charters are part of the equation. They are not the solution. There is no silver bullet.”

Infante-Green said the district will not be completely overrun with charter schools, but the way things work, those potentially new charter schools can guide the district in a better direction.

“Charters were meant and created to be able to share best practice,” she said. “Whatever they figure out to share with all the districts at large.”

But according to Maribeth Calabro, president of the Providence Teachers Union, that hasn’t exactly been the case with the current charters located in Providence.

“What we found is that just doesn’t happen. They do not share best practices with us,” Calabro said. “They don’t interact with us at all.”

Calabro said the focus should be on current charters in the district boasting higher test scores, instead of adding new schools to the mix.

“I think they should do what they were asked to do, to begin with,” she said. “If they were supposed to be the incubators of change and they’re supposed to be the incubators of best practice then that’s what they should be.”

Calabro, also arguing that charter schools have a lottery system where kids are weened out, meanwhile, public schools welcome all. She said she would like to see that structure change, as well as demographics, in charter schools and see how those institutions test at that point.

But what will a new charter school model potentially look like in Providence? No specifics have been given yet but Dr. Anthony Rolle, dean of the School of Education at URI, said there are ways charters can be beneficial to the district.

“A role that charter schools may be able to play here is to help redesign school curricula, redesign school faculty,” Rolle said. 

Dr. Rolle stating that when it comes to forming charters, community involvement is at its core, something that was criticized in that Johns Hopkins University report.

“Parents may get together and say what are we going to do differently,” he said. “It may be we’re going to focus on math and science. It may be they’re going to focus on a liberal arts curriculum.”

Things could change as well, including administrative structure, and the role of the teachers union. But Dr. Rolle said those will be slight changes.

Dr. Rolle sat on the review committee for the Johns Hopkins report and said that the district should not overlook its use of charter schools as part of the solution.

 However, he warns that the state and city proceed with caution because the district has 25,000 students it needs to educate.

“I think charter schools can be a part of the solution,” he said. “We still have to be careful of how we approach the usage of charter schools and how they are ultimately going to be implemented.”

Dr. Rolle said for any real change to happen, it’s going to take about three to five years.