Gist Renews Push to Close Achievement Gap

Gist Renews Push to Close Achievement Gap

As she marks her one-year anniversary of being education commissioner, Deborah Gist is taking new steps to focus on closing the achievement gap between minorities and white students.

Gist recently joined the board of directors for the Education Equality Project and says that through her work with the national organization she can help close the achievement gap in Rhode Island—something she says has been a goal of hers during her entire career in education.  

“I am honored and excited to join the Board of Directors of the Education Equality Project,” Gist told GoLocalProv. “The Education Equality Project board members believe that education reform is the most pressing civil rights issue of our generation and that we must close the racial and ethnic achievement gaps present in American public education.”

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An interactive map on the Web site for the group breaks down just how serious the gap is in Rhode Island. For example, there is a nearly 20-point difference in the percentage of white students versus Hispanics who drop out of school—26 to 46 percent. The discrepancy isn’t much better for African-American students either, who drop out at a rate of 43 percent.

The Education Equality Project has a broad and ambitious agenda for education reform that it said it will push at every level from the local to the federal. Top priorities include allowing parents to choose to send their children to charter schools, resisting “political forces who seek to preserve a failed system,” and making “tough decisions” about ineffective teachers.  

Many of those themes will resonate with those who have been following Gist’s first year as commissioner—most notably her controversial decision to fire all of the teachers at Central Falls High School after the union and the administration couldn’t agree to a plan for fixing the school.

Gist said her involvement with the group would benefit Rhode Island students. “I plan to contribute all I can to the vital work of the Education Equality Project and to use any available resources from the project to help us close achievement gaps in Rhode Island,” she said.