EDITORIAL: Dan McKee is Going Where No Governor Has Ever Gone Before - Leadership on Schools

EDITORIAL: Dan McKee is Going Where No Governor Has Ever Gone Before - Leadership on Schools

Give a tip of the cap to Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee. Where other Governors have talked about improving Rhode Island schools, McKee is walking the walk. He may step onto the third rail but it may be the most important effort any state Governor has taken on — fixing Rhode Island’s schools.

Others have talked about it. McKee is doing it.

McKee has now directly inserted himself into the negotiations of the Providence teacher’s union, fired the old Providence superintendent, and now, has personally hired the new interim superintendent. Governors don't usually take on such an active role.

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He has functionally blocked the effort by the unions to place a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools. The legislation being pushed by the unions even brashly tries to retroactively cancel more than 5,000 previously approved new public charter seats.  McKee has threatened to veto the misguided effort.

 

For McKee, Big Risk, and Big Reward

Former head of Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council Gary Sasse, who has served as Director of Administration in Rhode Island, has repeatedly stated that the states that have been most successful at improving their K-12 schools had two critical factors.

First, there was leadership from the top — Governors like Bill Weld in Massachusetts and James Hunt in North Carolina. Governors who led from the front, worked with legislative leaders, and created measurable change that has lasted decades.

The outcome was improving their schools and transforming their state’s economy into national powerhouses.

Second, the changes included teachers unions but the process and the new structures were not beholden to any petty demands. Salaries increased and so did the quality of the teachers.

 

All the chips

For McKee, he is all in. The chips are being pushed to the middle of the table and his political fate will be determined by tangible improvements to schools.

There is no turning back.

The legacy of Providence public schools for decades has been of horrific outcomes — see the Ted Eddy report from 1993 and the Johns Hopkins Report decades later in 2019.

And while Providence schools results have been flagged as a national embarrassment — the quality of schools in Woonsocket, Pawtucket, Central Falls and … are no better.

While Governors like Lincoln Almond, Don Carcieri, Lincoln Chafee talked about improving schools — their outcomes were lackluster. Governor Gina Raimondo’s focus was on economic development and only learned too late that it is difficult for companies to grow in Rhode Island without a high-performing workforce. Then, she let the state takeover Providence schools -- and was gone soon thereafter, leaving much of the city's education system in chaos.

Now, McKee is locked in and he begins the process of transforming RI’s schools. It won’t be easy, but if successful he will not only improve RI’s education system but also transform the state’s economy.