Students in eighth grade think about that as business executives in the Education Partnership urge them to take tough courses in high school.

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, May 5, 2004

BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- At first, the prospect of living on $24,000 a year, or $2,000 a month looked good to the eighth graders in Chris Kite's social studies class at the Samuel Bridgham Middle School yesterday morning.

But after the guest speaker was done outlining expenses, they realized that on a gross salary of $24,000 a year, they'd better have apartments on a bus route, because they wouldn't be able to afford cars.

In reality, they will be lucky to land jobs paying as much as $24,000 a year if they graduate from high school but don't study hard enough to make it through college, said Michael McMahon, executive director of the state's Economic Development Corporation.

McMahon is one of more than 40 business executives recruited by the nonprofit Education Partnership to visit eighth graders as they are about to begin selecting courses for their first year of high school.

In Providence, West Warwick, Portsmouth and Westerly, the volunteers are urging next fall's high school freshmen to become Rhode Island Scholars, pledging to take rigorous courses that will prepare them to succeed in college and beyond.

At a news conference after classroom presentations at Bridgham, Valerie Forti, executive director of the Education Partnership, noted that 7 out of 10 high school graduates nationwide did not take the high school courses necessary to make it through college.

Of those who enter college, nearly 1 out of 2 must take remedial classes to learn what they should have in high school, she said.

In the meantime, jobs requiring a high level of skill go begging.

McMahon put it to the students another way.

Who is likely to learn more in high school, someone in an American high school who attends class from 8:30 to 2:15, as students do in Providence, or someone in a Japanese high school, which runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.?

The Bridgham class chalked up one for the Japanese, who export goods such as Nintendo video game systems and luxury cars.

"If we have to compete," McMahon said, "are they going to be faster? Who wants to be somebody's lunch?"

Besides McMahon, the presenters were Emanuel Barrow, vice president of BankRI; Mario Hillario of Channel 10 (WJAR) and James Vincent of the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation.

One student, Jerry Darius, said he thought McMahon's talk was "very helpful." He said he now knows how hard he has to work.

His goal? To become an NBA star.

"Hey," he told classmates. "They're going to be wearing sneakers named after me in a few years."

McMahon said that in any group, usually one fifth succeeds no matter what, one fifth that requires extensive intervention, and three fifths land in the middle.

He says he is focusing on the group in the middle, "where the game is won."

Yesterday's presentations introduced the Rhode Island Scholars program.

The effort will also involve guidance counselors and parents, who will be asked to support their children in choosing and sticking with a heavy concentration of academic courses in high school:

Four years of math, including two years of algebra, geometry and another higher-level course

Three years of science, including physics, chemistry and biology

Four years of English

Three and a half years of social studies

Three years of the same foreign language

Schools Supt. Melody A. Johnson told the business executives and representatives of the Education Partnership that the Rhode Island Scholars program supports her push for academic excellence.

She, in turn, has endorsed the Rhode Island Scholars program by proposing more rigorous graduation requirements that conform to the program's recommendations, Johnson said.

Mayor David N. Cicilline said that not only students and their parents, but the entire community, must work together if the next class of high school freshmen is to succeed in more rigorous courses over the next four years.

And the "final thing is resources," Cicilline said, announcing that he and Johnson planned to testify before the House Finance Committee later in the day asking the General Assembly to raise state aid to education.

Forti said the business executives who make up the Education Partnership are deciding their position on state aid to education.

Governor Carcieri's budget proposal cut aid to locally controlled public schools by $7.9 million and gave almost the same amount -- $7.8 million -- to public charter schools and a regional alternative high school.

Providence alone stands to lose about $3.7 million of Carcieri's overall $7.9 million cut, with the governor suggesting that the cities and towns should do something about the high cost of labor.

Forti said the Education Partnership "believes in adequate education funding" but wants to be sure that the money has the maximum impact in the classroom.

Alluding to galloping increases in the cost of health coverage and other benefits in the last several years, Forti said, "There needs to be a collegial standard that everyone should be a part of."