Providence Schools 'Crisis': Students, Buildings Failing

PROVIDENCE, RI — School's out for summer, which means a break from the classroom for students. A scathing report of Providence schools, however, found that not enough learning is happening during the school year. And that's just the beginning.

The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy conducted a review of the Providence Public School System and reported that 90 percent of students are not proficient in math, buildings are crumbling, and bullying represents a major problem. The school system is "in crisis," Gov. Gina Raimondo claimed.

"This report delivers a direct and powerful message about the challenges facing the Providence Public School District — and it is a message that is both painful to hear and impossible to ignore," said Rhode Island's new Commissioner of Primary and Secondary Education, Angélica Infante-Green. "The Johns Hopkins team has provided an invaluable service to us all — focusing our attention on the bureaucratic dysfunction that leads to a host of problems that prevent the city’s students from learning and thriving. Today offers us a moment to confront the facts and commit to do everything we can to give all Providence students the education they deserve. Let’s get to work."

The report paints a somber picture of the largest public school system in the state. Here are some of the major problems itemized in the report:

• The great majority of students are not learning on, or even near, grade level.
• With rare exception, teachers are demoralized and feel unsupported.
• Most parents feel shut out of their children’s education.
• Principals find it very difficult to demonstrate leadership.
• Many school buildings are deteriorating across the city, and some are even dangerous to students' and teachers' well-being

"The truth is that most, if not all, of the issues that were observed are challenges that we, too, have identified and experienced as barriers to progress," said Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza. "This report makes clear that the status quo is failing our kids and we know that nipping at the margins will not be enough. We need wholesale, transformational change and I look forward to working with state partners, teachers, parents and students to accomplish it."

The report said there is an "exceptionally low level of academic instruction" in Providence schools, especially middle and high schools, where "very little visible student learning was going on in the majority of classrooms and schools we visited." On top of that, crumbling infrastructure, bullying and physical violence create a poor culture in schools that does not foster learning or encourage success.

Over the course of the audit, reviewers analyzed documents and data and met with students, parents and teachers from schools across Rhode Island's capital city. They found that, across the board, teachers are not supported, while school leaders are set up to fail through poor metrics that unfairly penalize them for poor student achievement. Despite this, the report said the district is full of "devoted teachers, principals, and some district leaders who go above and beyond to support student success."

"This report is devastating for the generations of students who have been denied a quality education, for the teachers who haven’t been supported, and for the parents who haven’t been heard," Raimondo said. "After seeing this report, there is no question that the system is broken, and Providence schools are in crisis."

Providence, like many other urban school districts, has a high level of students for whom English is a second language, known as English Language Learners. These students make up 30 percent of Providence's current student body. The report said that these students are particularly under-served by a combination of low learning expectations for students across the board and an insufficient number of ELL-certified teachers and support staff.

Across the board, students are not reaching important learning benchmarks. A graph of English-Language Arts proficiency levels in third, fifth, eighth and tenth Grades based on standardized test scores. Year after year, Providence students lag far behind the rest of the state.

The disparity grows when students are separated by race, with black and Hispanic students lagging well behind their white counterparts, particularly in the eighth grade.

In a lot of cases, it's the schools themselves that create a barrier to learning. The report details decaying buildings with brown water coming out of faucets, lead paint falling from ceilings "in sheets," asbestos, rodents, no locks on bathroom doors and even lead in the drinking water.

One reviewer, who had visited other run-down schools in Arkansas and Georgia, reported "nothing [they] saw was like what [they] witnessed in Providence."

"It was clear from interviews across the system that getting repairs done is a haphazard business," the report said in part, with repairs as simple as fixing a window taking "from one day to a month."

"This report calls on all of us to step up and to channel our collective outrage to action," Raimondo said. "I've tasked Commissioner Infante-Green with leading a series of community conversations over the coming weeks to help develop recommendations for the best path forward."

Read the full review of Providence's schools here.