Providence City Council workshop considers collaborative model to restructure city schools

The leaders of a special Rhode Island Senate Commission gathered with Providence City Councilors on a rainy Monday evening to discuss a possibility cheerier than the weather outside: Reforming the historically woeful state of Providence Public Schools.

“Your ability to get a quality public education should not depend on your family’s socioeconomic status,” said Providence Democratic Sen. Sam Zurier, who led the Commission earlier this year, in his opening remarks to the City Council’s Special Committee on Health, Opportunity, Prosperity, and Education (HOPE).  

The now-concluded Senate commission had a long and technical name: “The Senate Legislative Commission to Review and Provide Recommendations for Professional and Labor-Management Standards that Provide School-Based Flexibility and Accountability for Employees of the Providence Public Schools.”

Joining Zurier to present the commission’s equally technical findings were two members of the Senate commission: Susan Lusi, former Providence Public School Department (PPSD) superintendent, and Steven Smith, formerly president of the Providence Teachers Union. 

Zurier dove into the Senate Commission’s recommendations, which were released in a 275-page report in May.

Special Committee member Justin Roias was absent at the meeting, but three City Councilors who aren’t on the committee — Helen Anthony, John Goncalves and Council President Rachel Miller — attended the discussion to offer thoughts and hear Zurier, Lusi and Smith’s presentation.

The capital city’s schools have been under state control since 2019. That means the Rhode Island Department of Education, and not the city’s school board, is responsible for pretty much any policy that has tangible effects on the district’s finances and staffing. 

This context is just the latest setting for a longstanding battle of egos among the district’s many stakeholders. 

“There’s a history of every side demonizing the other for decades,” Lusi said. “‘We can’t work with this commissioner,’ or, ‘We can’t work with that superintendent,’ or ‘That union president is out of their mind.’…Unless you believe every one of those people was evil, or an idiot, or whatever, then we have a systemic problem.”

The odd couple of former manager Lusi and former union boss Smith penned a 2022 opinion piece that called for a radical restructuring of Providence schools. The recommendations from that op-ed were echoed in the advice of the commission’s report.

The report’s four major suggestions were:

• Revise the teachers’ contract and enhance accountability for educators, including new processes for dismissing teachers who don’t improve even with support. 
• Support teachers and their professional development at a schoolwide level, and leverage experienced teachers’ knowledge to nurture newer teachers
• Change a handful of state laws to accommodate the necessary changes 
• Hold administrators, like superintendents, as accountable as other stakeholders. 

“The challenge in the Senate is: What is it that we can control?” Zurier asked.

Smith stressed that collaboration would better serve all parties involved; the union also suffered from lack of accountability. At meetings with parents, Smith said, “I would be accused of representing bad teachers.” But Smith had no choice: His job was to negotiate what he described as the complexities of Rhode Island law that prescribe how unionized teachers can be let go. That meant sometimes spending up to $50,000 in legal fees for due process proceedings.   

“There were some egregious cases I won’t get into, but we still had to go through that [due] process,” Smith said.

A better model of union-school collaboration, Zurier maintained, is the Springfield Empowerment Zone in Massachusetts, which served as a crucial allegory of the Senate commission’s report as to how renewed union relations can alter a school district. Springfield’s schools have received national attention for the changes they made, which radically retooled union contracts but have seen acceptance from unionized teachers and students and families alike. 

Springfield averted takeover

One crucial difference in that story: The Empowerment Zone didn’t transpire in the wake of a state takeover, but staved one off.  

“Threat of state takeover in Springfield was so total, it encouraged stakeholders to work together,” Zurier said.

“Look at that contract. Look at how things are going in Springfield,” he added, but reiterated that not all of the report’s recommendations regarding contracts are permitted under current state law – hence the report’s suggestion to change state law directly.  

Some City Councilors wondered if they couldn’t effect more immediate change.

Committee member and Councilor Shelly Peterson said the commission’s proposals for more collaboprative teaching were sound. But she worried about the council’s and city’s stretched resources, and added, “We’re not talking about the immediate outcome to the child. What are immediate outcomes for kids? Every time we have these conversations, I never hear it.”

Lusi acknowledged that change wouldn’t be immediate. But in education, she suggested, nothing is. 

“We’ve not only done three to five years [of reform],” Lusi said. “In many cases we’ve done decades of the same thing, and not seen any success…I’m not trying to throw any administration under the bus. I was here. I know how hard it is. After decades in education, unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything that turned it on a dime.”

Lusi said that even if the City Council cannot bargain directly with the teachers union — which is true even if the schools weren’t under state control — but that they can still exert influence on the process. “You all can ask really good questions about the contract that emerges,” she said.  

Councilor Miguel Sanchez confirmed the egotism of public bodies:“We all have egos at this table. We all have a role in decision making.” 

Would the report’s recommendations, even if enacted tomorrow, get the schools any closer to collaborative governance, Sanchez wondered?

“Much closer,” Lusi said.

Added Smith: “The law didn’t encourage us to work together. It was just the opposite. If you’re a union leader, you’re fighting for your members. You’re not responsible for the students in the room.”