There’s a turmoil brewing in Rhode Island’s education system, as indicated by a spate of articles, recently.  Start with Linda Borg, in the Providence Journal, raising the perennial plea for more money:

The General Assembly has extended a moratorium on new school construction for another year, putting about $60 million worth of repairs and renovations on hold.

Joseph DaSilva, the state Department of Education’s school construction coordinator , said renovations involving immediate health and safety issues will be permitted, pending reviews by RIDE and approval by the state Board of Education.

But new buildings, additions or repairs to athletic fields will have to wait another year before moving forward.

For example, “Narragansett wanted $8.8 million to expand career and technical programs, repair athletic fields and expand its greenhouse.”  The local districts are looking to state taxpayers to create new offerings for students.  The issue involves charter schools, too, including Highlander, for which “the moratorium limits… options,” by taking away a 30% subsidy from the state to buy new land.  Instead, the school may simply lease the property in Warren that used to house Our Lady of Fatima High School, a private Catholic school that is no longer in operation.

It appears that Highlander will still serve the Providence district, and at least some of the parents are thrilled with the Warren property and willing to travel.  Their perspective reinforces the impression that parents see charter schools primarily as free-to-them private schools, and there can be little doubt that policymakers who view charters as “school choice” see them as a means of bringing some of the private school market under the government-school brand.

The state is doing something similar with increased funding for pre-K, as Kelcy Dolan reports in the Warwick Beacon:

Robert Bushell, director of elementary education for Warwick, said that pre-k programs are becoming more necessary as the kindergarten curriculum continues to expand. He said that, looking to the future, after the establishment of full-day kindergarten throughout the city, the next initiative would be to open full-day pre-k courses in all the public schools.

Like charter schools, new taxpayer subsidies for kindergarten and pre-K are contributing to the shrinking number of private schools, making it more likely that they will follow the fate of Our Lady of Fatima.

Regular district schools, predictably, are concerned with protecting their own turf on all fronts.  As Borg reports, government school districts are challenging the need for more charter schools:

A proposed mayoral academy in Woonsocket is stirring up opposition from at least two of the sending school districts, Woonsocket and North Smithfield. …

Mayoral academies are diverse, regional charter schools whose boards are chaired by a mayor. Under law, they are not required to pay prevailing wages, pay into a teacher retirement fund or offer tenure protection.

Charter schools in general are given greater flexibility over the length of school day, hiring practices and curriculum.

Another article by Dolan, in the Warwick Beacon, reports on “Concerns over student loss to private schools“:

The declining numbers are only worsened as parents seek “better” educations for their children at private or charter schools.

Joanne Pelletier, principal at Winman Junior High, emailed several parents who plan to send their children onto private high schools. She asked about their reasons for leaving public schools. Pelletier wanted feedback from the parents on how Toll Gate could improve because she didn’t want Toll Gate to miss out on “bright and talented students.”

One profiled Warwick family is that of resident Rob Cote, who is sending his children to Prout, a private Catholic high school in Wakefield.  Cote cites the city’s fiscal situation and its likely continued effect on its education system.

This spring, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity collected data on all schools in Rhode Island, with the intention of developing true apples-to-apples comparisons of school costs.  This meant separating out the costs of district schools of different levels (e.g., elementary school versus high school) and attempting as much as possible to reduce government-school per-student costs to account for expenditures that don’t apply in private schools, or for which private schools would typically charge extra.

Using school-year 2012 data, the latest for which all necessary information was available, Warwick high schools came in at $16,941 per student, while Prout was $11,200.  This disparity suggests the thought experiment of what Prout would do with an additional $5,741 per student per year.  A portion would surely go to increased compensation for faculty and staff.  (In some cases, private Catholic school teachers earn between one-third and one-half of their government-school peers.)

A large portion, however, would go toward improved facilities, increased programs, and additional financial aid for disadvantaged families.  The reasons are simple: Private schools have to attract families willing to choose to pay tuition, and in many cases, particularly among religiously affiliated schools, they bring a sense of mission to their operations.

One phrase that is conspicuously absent from all of the above articles is “teachers’ union,” the omission of which conveniently avoids messy questions like those raised by Allysia Finley, in Friday’s Wall Street Journal:

One resolution approved by the attendees [of the National Education Association annual gathering] —about 7,000 delegates—called for the NEA to support an International Day of Peace Campaign. Another would have the union “educate its members about the environmental and health effects of shale gas fracking.” New-business items come with cost estimates; the anti-fracking effort will cost $9,750. (Demanding Mr. Duncan’s head came cheap at $2,500.) …

Delegates debated whether the union’s president should write a letter to Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder denouncing the NFL team name’s “institutional racism.” They also discussed a resolution supporting reparations for “the lingering impact of slavery” and “subtle Jim Crow policies and thinking” including “unconscious bias.” These items were referred to a private committee for further discussion.

Or consider the involvement, as revealed in publication of internal documents by John Hinderaker on Powerline, of the American Federation of Teachers with Democracy Alliance, a secretive group devoted to siphoning millions of dollars to progressives groups and causes.  The union reportedly gives nearly a quarter million dollars to the group every year.

As previous analyses have shown, public schools in the past forty years have been defined by skyrocketing costs and stagnant performance.  It isn’t surprising that parents and their communities are seeking alternatives — whether self-financed private schools or free government-branded private schools (charters).  Giving public schools more resources may succeed in driving some of those options out of business, but the assumption that they’ll improve outcomes or expand students’ opportunities needs to be challenged.