Board of Regents Meeting - 1/5/12

Yesterday's Board of regents meeting was a joke. Many - myself included - arrived early to sign up for public comment.  And, although we've grown accustomed to squeezing ourselves into wee room 501, few expected to find the room so crammed beyond capacity that those of us who didn't make it in could neither see nor hear what was happening inside.  We were made aware that the Regents had no plan to move the meeting to the large empty auditorium on the first floor.  Public comment - the fourth item on the meeting agenda - began just a few minutes after four o'clock, starting with Mayor Angel Taveras.  I have no idea what he may have said

About an hour into the meeting, two URI security guards interrupted the proceedings to inform the Regents that they were in violation of fire codes and should immediately move to the auditorium.  They explained to Dr. Robert Carothers that a failure to do so would result in police intervention.

The mass of people outside the tiny board room waited for the signal to move downstairs, but it didn't come. The meeting continued as though nothing had happened.  Perhaps all the positive media attention around the Occupy Wall Street movement had motivated the Regents, the Mayor, and the Commissioner of Education to try out a little civil disobedience.  Or maybe they just consider themselves to be above the law.  Either way, it didn't matter, because an anonymous fink dropped a dime on those rebellious hippies and we were down in the auditorium in a flash.

It only took a couple of minutes for us to settle into place, then public comments resumed.  Twenty-two people managed to make themselves heard before George Caruolo, Chairman of the Board, announced that it was 6:00, and they'd barely made a dent in the long sign-up list.  He proposed that they call it quits for the evening and take up public comment where it left off at their next meeting - January 19th.

The blatant disregard for public safety and accessibility at this supposedly Open Meeting is far more interesting than the bulk of public comment, but there were a few highlights.  Only 14 of the 22 people who spoke at the meeting addressed the Achievement First proposal, as public comment is open to all discussion items.  We listened to Joy, who graduated from Cranston East, Tufts, and Temple University. She spoke passionately in favor of an Achievement First Mayoral Academy for Providence.  Since she works for Achievement First, we should probably cross her off the list of concerned Providence parents.  Keith Oliveira (appointed by Taveras to the Providence School Board), Delia Rodriguez (chair of the Providence School Board nominating committee, and appointed by Taveras to the ProCAP board of directors), Nick Hemond (another Taveras-appointed member of the Providence School Board), Dan Corley (member of the Mayor's Education Committee & brother of Taveras' law partner),  and Joe Almeida (appointed by Taveras to serve on his Public Safety committee) spoke in support of the Mayoral Academy.  Am I the only one who wants to cross these folks off the list, too?

To be fair, the Achievement First people would probably argue that public comment by Providence teachers shouldn't be taken into account.  After all, they stand to profit if the Mayoral Academy doesn't open  ---  Oh, wait.  No they don't.  Suggesting that union members are opposed to charter schools because they're a threat to their jobs would be like straight people opposing gay marriage because it threatens their families.  Of course, that's a blog for a different day.

Only two of the voices raised in opposition to AF belonged to Providence teachers anyway:  Dan Wall, a Cranston resident and parent who teaches in Providence, addressed the "big box" model that AF applies to education.  He also relayed a message from Providence Teachers Union President, Steve Smith, who maintains his firm stance in opposition to Achievement First.  Richard Santurri managed to summarize the City Council's report on the Mayoral Academy in just three minutes - focusing primarily on the financial burden such a school would have place the city.  Ed Benson, a Providence resident and Professor Emeritus of French at UConn, questioned the ability of a charter school to boost student achievement when research shows that charter school students very rarely outperform their public school counterparts.  Cranston parent Monica Texiera-DaSouza, expressed her firm opposition to AF, as did State Representative Arthur Corvese.

I probably shouldn't have been as surprised as I was by City Councilman Sam Zurier's statement, but sometimes my own biases come back to bite me.  While I assumed he'd speak in favor of Achievement First, he actually focused on his concerns about the negative financial impact the Mayoral Academy would have on the city.  He suggested that the Board of Regents shouldn't approve the charter as written (a "two school" mayoral academy with 920 students enrolled), but should consider allowing AF one school with a total enrollment of 480 students.  His December 31st commentary in the Providence Journal explains his position.  While I still disagree with the Councilman's proposal, I appreciate his diplomacy.

And now we wait our turn once again.


Between now and the next Board of Regents meeting, the CDPE is having its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, January 10th, 7:00pm at Libertalia - 280 Broadway, Providence.
We've also planned a State House Rally for Monday, January 16th (MLK Day) at 2:00pm.