The Speaker, the Commissioner and the Misguided Governor

The Speaker, the Commissioner and the Misguided Governor

The newest report on dismal science test scores affecting the state’s minority students are just the latest confirmation of what the state’s firebrand Education Commissioner has claimed all along: If a serious effort to overhaul the state’s schools, especially in the urban core, is not sustained, the numbers of our students getting inadequate educations will only grow. A recent report in GoLocalProv revealed a high ranking political figure in the Statehouse thankfully recognizes that. So far though, it’s not the Governor. House Speaker Gordon Fox, in the early days of this new session, has emerged as a serious Speaker who seems ready to embrace the very serious challenges facing this state. You may not agree with Fox on every issue but his willingness to publicly get behind Commissioner Deborah Gist; openly utter pension reform; and immediately assemble a municipal commission to assess levels of fiscal stress in cities and towns, right at the outset of the session, are good signs.

The Speaker’s complimentary appraisal of the bold Commissioner’s agenda amounts to an important endorsement of the Gist vision, which Fox termed “a shaking of the tree” which the state needed. He seems to get that her tough love approach to dramatically reforming the school system, weighted down for decades by union controlled policies, is the only hope we have for producing more promising results. (Though he stops short in backing her current hot button proposal: the 3-tier diploma, saying he felt though it may be well intended toward excellence, it may be the wrong approach.)

Since Senate President Theresa Paiva-Weed also weighed in as supportive of Gist, it seems clear that Governor Chafee’s less than enthusiastic embrace of the Commissioner—due to his campaign’s embrace of the anti-Gist factions in the unions—may be put to the test now that the two top leaders of the General Assembly have signaled their support for her.

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Fox seems to realize something about Gist which not only eludes her harshest critics, but so far, seems to elude Chafee: the performance of the schools and the state’s economy are linked. A high performing statewide public school system is the impetus to a skilled local workforce which is ultimately key not only to the state’s business environment but to its very economic survival. As Chafee convened his first official meeting with the board of the EDC in recent days, that discussion wasn’t on the agenda, but it should have been. The Governor should be focusing on cutting edge skill development, not cutting out a trailblazer like Gist. It’s not a secret that this state is losing ground to our regional neighbors in offering a properly trained workforce to growing niche business sectors. (Though perhaps that’s why Chafee is so obsessed with the new commuter rail hub in Warwick—he knows commuters will only travel in one direction—north toward greater Boston where prosperous firms and jobs actually exist.)

Aside from Gist, the Speaker’s formation of a Municipal Commission comes not a moment too soon. Fox says he hopes to utilize some findings in the Receiver’s report on Central Falls to establish statewide standards for dealing with municipal debt and unfunded pension obligations in hopes of avoiding fiscal meltdown first and foremost in Providence, but also in other surrounding communities.

There’s already a victory of sorts to claim under Fox at the helm. At the very least, the public can now at least track the votes taken by their Legislature since the Speaker kept his word to good government organizations, especially RISC, and implemented, at the session’s opening, an on-line vote reporting system with real time updates of floor votes.

Regardless of the misguided decisions which may be coming out of the other side of the building, it’s time for a serious session with a serious Speaker and so far this Fox looks the opposite of crazy and very much in the hunt for the right solutions.

Donna Perry is a Communications Consultant for the RI Statewide Coalition (RISC) www.statewidecoalition.com