Donna Perry: Passing the Bullying Test

Donna Perry: Passing the Bullying Test

There’s been more interest in the test results of Rhode Island’s public high school students by some statewide figures and certain legislators in recent days than has been seen around here in some time. The parade of legislators eager to join forces with a student group that’s been propped up—and some consider are merely props---of the harshest critics of state Education Commissioner Deb Gist, is going to grow apparently in coming days.

NECAP Publicity Stunt

Three more legislators will take part in the “NECAP Publicity Stunt: Part 2”, as they sit this weekend for a mock test taking of the highly controversial standardized exam. The growing clamor around what Board of Education Chairperson Eva-Marie Mancuso has correctly called “a publicity stunt” took on new twitter related twists over the past few days that revealed the challenge to the test has more to do with the desire by forces in some quarters to undermine the Commissioner at all costs in her unwavering determination to raise the standard for earning a RI high school diploma.

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No one is disputing the wider education community has a right to varying views on the choice of the NECAP, as it’s presently designed, to be a large determining factor for a student’s eligibility to receive a diploma. It’s true other states have resorted to the use of other standardized tests rather than the NECAP, but it’s also important to note that many assistance provisions are offered to all students, second chances at the test are given, and only partial proficiency is required to meet the threshold for a diploma. That the test is in dispute is clear.

Engaging in a respectful, fact driven public debate over a testing policy is fine and appropriate. But what has occurred in this state over the past week is quite something else. What is very disturbing is that the larger lesson being taught certain groups of the state’s high school students, particularly a pair from Warwick’s Veterans Memorial High School, is that not only is it ok to tweet out profanity laced comments and criticism against a high ranking education official, but you will gain the support and encouragement of certain other adults by doing so.

ACLU getting in on the action

ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown’s arguments against standardized testing generally and the NECAP particularly, may hold some merit but they would be viewed with more credibility if he had not been such a willing participant in the test charade now underway. Furthermore, his rush to chastise Warwick school officials when they declared that the students engaged in the twitter bullying against Gist violated the school’s code of conduct and issued suspensions, only re-enforced the perception that student respect for high ranking school officials is unimportant to certain circles of adults. A troubling lesson plan indeed.

Perhaps it would be useful in the days ahead to not lose sight of a separate news story that has been dueling for coverage recently. Incorporated into the findings of fraud and waste in the now released Fraud and Waste Report compiled by Ken Block, was the striking data on the fast growing percentages of Rhode Islanders needing to rely on the SNAP program (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) or food stamps.

The federal government provided Rhode Island with some $25 million for food stamps just last month alone—to be distributed to over 180,000 of the state’s residents, stretching from Woonsocket to Warwick.

SNAP program to nearly 20% of the population

Households representing one in five Rhode Islanders are now receiving the assistance, and the data showed the program has grown significantly over the past six years since the start of the recession. But while other states clearly have moved into recovery, as personal income growth for residents in others states slowly bounces back, the data for our state reflects a more troubling trend: Overall, Rhode Island is a state where poverty is growing—not prosperity. Despite the claims by some that the growth in the SNAP program is tied more to the recession, a discomforting article by the Washington Post seemed to capture Rhode Island’s looming larger problem, as it depicted the food stamp cottage industry economy of Woonsocket that jolts into high gear at the first of every month as the estimated one third of city residents receives their SNAP benefits.

What often is lost in the continuing coverage and discussions about the state’s unemployment problem is that a weak job supply market is only one part of the story. The root causes of our high unemployment has a lot to do with what Deb Gist has championed since arriving in Rhode Island – despite the determination by some of the most powerful forces in the wider educational establishment to reject her mantra.

There is indisputable evidence that there’s a widening gap between the opportunities of today’s job market (being seized by other states)—and Rhode Island’s ability to turn out the type of highly skilled and properly educated workforce to meet them. A certain proficiency level in math, which seems to be at the center of the NECAP test firestorm, is one component of the “STEM” academic equation, and it’s indisputably an important one. The ongoing campaign against the test and the Commissioner will not change the reality that, as the Board of Education’s Ms. Mancuso asserted, the state’s students need adults who are preparing them to be successful in college and the workplace beyond. Merely passing a bullying test against education authorities just won’t be enough out in the real world.

Donna Perry is Executive Director of RI Taxpayers
www.ritaxpayers.com