To All Friends of Education:

We have a simple motto at the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: “All kids, all schools.” By that we mean that all children can learn and that all schools can be safe and healthy places for learning.

Those principles are affirmed in our mission statement:

The mission of the Board of Regents and the Department of Education is to lead and support schools and communities in ensuring that all students achieve at the high levels needed to lead fulfilling and productive lives, to compete in academic and employment settings, and to contribute to society.

I am pleased to say that we have been making steady progress toward our goals.
How do we know this?:

• In Rhode Island, as in other states, we test all students at several grade levels in key subjects: language arts, mathematics, writing, and health. We publish the results of the tests every year, and we keep track of the progress that each school and school district makes.

• We use this information to measure our schools; each year, we classify each of our public schools as either high performing, moderately performing, or in need of improvement, and we note whether the school is making sufficient progress toward its goals.

• We also participate in a national testing program that helps us measure our overall progress in comparison with other states.

• For years, Rhode Island has had one of the highest participation rates in the SAT tests, an indication that many of our students hope to continue their education in college.

 

We believe that parent involvement is a key factor in helping schools to improve, and we believe that accurate knowledge about the public schools is a key to parent involvement.

The good news for parents and other Rhode Islanders interested in education is that there’s a tremendous amount of information readily available on all of our public schools. You can use this information to learn more about our public schools and to help you make an informed decision in selecting the right school for your children:

• Every year, we publish a detailed report on education in Rhode Island called Information Works!, and we also publish a “report card” on every public school and school district in the state. The school report cards include test results, socioeconomic data such as poverty rates, and other data about life in the school, such as attendance rates and suspension rates.

• Every school holds an annual School Report Night, during which the principal and other educators discuss the school’s goals and achievements with members of the community; often, the school report card is distributed on this occasion.

• We conduct wide-ranging surveys on teaching, learning, and school climate in each school, and we publish thorough reports on each school in the state based on week-long visits by a team of educators. These surveys and reports, called the SALT Survey and the SALT Visit Team Report, are also available to the public. Information from the SALT survey is included on the school report card. (SALT stands for School Accountability for Learning and Teaching.)

• We compile the Rhode Island Educational Directory, which has telephone and contact information on all of the state’s public and private schools.

• Through a program called In$ite, we collect and publish financial data that shows how money is spent in each school—how much is spent on teacher salaries, how much on technology, how much on classroom materials, and so forth.

• Annually, as part of the process of determining school-performance classifications, we identify districts and schools that are in need of improvement.

As you learn more about our public schools, we hope that you will become active in school life. Every public school in the state, by law, has a “school-improvement team,” which must include both parents and teachers. These teams set goals for the school and can be involved in any number of policy discussions at the school level. Joining a team is an excellent way to help our children by helping their schools.

With the support of parents and other friends of education from around the state, we hope that we can continue to be proud of our schools and of our students.

Sincerely,

Peter McWalters

Commissioner
Rhode Island Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education