The other day we blogged about some movement in Rhode Island to allow mayors there to have some flexibility to throw some spunk into the education offered to the public.
Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee, a Democrat who has been leading the charge on the issue, explains it further in today’s Providence Journal. Check out his description of Old Rhode Island versus New Rhode Island:
The coalition for old Rhode Island was discouraging: two long-familiar gentlemen, high-priced lobbyists for the teachers unions, and not a teacher in sight. The first lobbyist tried the shopworn scare tactics of the past — easily-refuted fantasies about the “gutting of employee protections.” The second lobbyist stated for the record that poor student achievement was “a product of demographics.”
How to interpret this except as an official statement by the National Education Association Rhode Island that poor and minority students can’t learn? Are these NEARI officials even aware of the hundreds of public schools across the nation (several within a short drive of Rhode Island) where poor and minority students achieve at levels comparable to or better than students in Rhode Island’s most privileged suburban schools?