First Year Report Card... 6.3.2010
Will it be the future of education in Rhode Island? That's a question some in academic circles are asking as the state's first `mayoral academy' finishes up its inaugural school year. This week we take a tour of Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley and Jim Hummel sits down for a conversation with the head of the school, as well as Cumberland's mayor - the driving force behind this new type of charter school. But as we found - it's not a school model everyone will embrace.
Script
Hummel : ``A year ago Cumberland Mayor Dan McKee led the fight at the General Assembly to open up a new kind of charter school - dubbed a mayoral academy. Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley, as it's called, is heading into the homestretch of its first year. This week we head inside to take a close look.
This, its proponents say, is the future of education in Rhode Island. A school where the motto is: `Work hard, go to college, change the world.'
And yes, these children are in - kindergarten.
``If you actually started a public school model from scratch, what would it look like?.''
That is the question Cumberland Mayor Dan McKee has been asking for years. And this year - after intense lobbying that secured nearly $700,000 in state funding, Democracy Prep opened its doors to 76 kindergartners from four communities in the Blackstone Valley.
The game plan is to build up to a K-12 school with more than 700 students over the next seven years. McKee raised a few eyebrows in educational circles when several years ago he began talking about the municipal side of government taking an active part in public education.
Hummel: ``Why should a mayor be involved? What about the people who say: `Take care of your public works department, take care of my roads and sewers, why should the mayor be involved?'
McKee: ``If that was the only thing that was important in terms of the strength of a community, you'd be right. A mayor is really responsible for the entire health - whether it's fiscal health or it's just community health - of a community. As a mayor you have a far-reaching responsibility, wherever that is, to make your community as strong as it can be."
Democracy Prep is leasing space this year in a building owned by Our Lady of Fatima Church in Valley Falls. Next year, a new 5th grade class will open in a building being renovated just a mile away.
While the mayoral academy had to hold a lottery last month for those wanting to get in next year, this is a not a model for everyone. The scholars, as they are called, go to school from 7:40 a.m. to 4 p.m. and have an extra 10 days of classes a year. Their classrooms have names like Harvard, Michigan and Berkely.
The days are intense, the expectations high, and no moment in the day wasted.
Hummel: ``What about the word `scholar' - isn't that a little hokey?''
Chiappetta: ``No way, no way. They work too hard to be called just kids or students - they are earning that distinction. They are in school eight plus hours a day - they have 30 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of homework a night; they absolutely deserve that title.''
Jeremy Chiapetta - who heads Democracy Prep, is a veteran of the Providence School system. He jumped at the chance to get in on the ground floor here last year.
Chiappetta: ``We have an urgency to what we do and our urgency is to close the achievement gap now.''
There are nine full-time teachers and several part-time staff, with two teachers to every classroom. They are paid about 10 percent more than the district average, but work longer hours and have been given Blackberries to answer questions from parents up to 9 o'clock at night. McKee says this model saves taxpayers money because it is not heavy on administration.
Hummel: ``What's your argument to the people who say: `You're draining money from the public school system and you're going to erode that.'? And they see you as a competition and a threat.''
McKee: ``My answer would be first of all this is a public school - these are publics schools, the students who come here are from families who live in our state, live in our community that have chosen to come to this public school. So those tax dollars are being appropriated for public education in the state; they don't belong to any one district, those are dollars allocated to public schools.''
The groundwork is already being laid for similar schools in Cranston and Providence - and the mayoral academy concept has the support of one very powerful person on Smith Hill - Speaker Gordon Fox.
Hummel: ''Where would you like to be in five years?''
Chiappetta: ``I would love to see providing this opportunity throughout Rhode Island, throughout New England. I would love to see thousands of scholars.''
Hummel: ``Politically do you think that's realistic?''
Chiappetta: ``I'm not a politician.''
Hummel: ``Educationally?''
Chiappetta: ``Absolutely, educationally there's nothing we're doing that's magic. We're having amazing results by having great teachers, great programs, more time and high expectations. There's nothing magical in that recipe.''
In Cumberland, Jim Hummel, for The Hummel Report.