Rhode Island has received mixed grades on the quality of its public education system, scoring poorly in two critical areas: student achievement and efforts to improve teacher quality, according to a national education magazine.

Education Week’s “Quality Counts 2008” report card gave Rhode Island D’s in those categories. The state fared better in its academic standards and testing system, earning a B+; the overall chance for student success, B-; and the amount of money it spends on education, B. The state received a C- for its efforts to offer high-quality early-childhood education programs and prepare students for college and work.

Overall, Rhode Island averaged a C, matching the national average, but lagging the other five New England states. Not surprisingly, Massachusetts ranked among the top scorers nationally, as it has in other measures of education quality such as SAT scores and national reading and math tests.

The magazine, which has graded states for 12 years, analyzed six areas for the 2008 report card: student chance for success, largely based on poverty factors; K-12 achievement, based on test scores; standards, assessments and accountability; transitions and alignment; the teaching profession; and school finance.

Education Week changed some of the categories in an effort to highlight two issues: how well states educate students from the preschool years to college, called “cradle to career”; and how well teachers are trained and evaluated, since teacher quality is one of the most critical factors in student success. The magazine also toughened the scoring method. Instead of grading states against the national average, the report card now compares them to the top scoring states.

Rhode Island received a D in the teaching profession category. Education Week reviewed whether teachers are required to take subject exams to demonstrate their proficiency, and whether the state requires formal evaluations of teachers and ties the evaluations to student achievement.

Rhode Island fell short in both areas.

Maine and New Hampshire also received Ds, Connecticut and Vermont each earned C-, and Massachusetts got a C in the teaching category.

“We hope that states will step back and look at these various areas and see what other states are doing,” said Carol Vinograd Bausell, project director for Quality Counts. “We want states to take a close look at the teaching profession, especially how to capitalize on human capital.”

For example, 42 states require prospective teachers to pass proficiency tests in subject areas — Rhode Island only requires new elementary teachers to do so. In addition, 43 states require formal evaluations of teachers while Rhode Island allows individual districts to conduct evaluations, with mixed results.

“I know we did not receive high scores in several of the categories, but I like the questions they are asking,” said Peter McWalters, the state’s commissioner of education. McWalters acknowledged some local districts conduct meaningful teacher evaluations, and some do not.

“We have heard from the locals that some of the evaluations are not effective or useful. They are so bound by tradition in the contracts, they are not useful for removing incompetent [teachers] or for the basis of school improvement.”

McWalters said the state should consider taking a leadership role in this area, although several teacher contracts would have to be changed to allow more rigorous evaluations. McWalters also said the state should strengthen and expand mentoring programs for new teachers.

State education officials also said Rhode Island deserved more credit in the teaching category than it received, but lost points on technicalities. For example, the state does require student teaching as part of all teacher preparatory programs, as do 39 other states. But since colleges and universities oversee the student teaching, the state Department of Education did not receive credit, said Paulajo Gaines, director of the department’s teacher certification office. Rhode Island also lost points because while the state does require high school teachers to major in the subject in which they teach, middle school teachers may meet the requirement through a major or a minor degree, which Education Week said failed the litmus test.

In addition, the state fared poorly in student achievement. Education Week analyzed the results of reading and math tests administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation’s Report Card. Rhode Island’s proficiency scores ranked low — although most areas showed improvement since the test was given in 2003 and 2005. Just 34 percent of fourth graders scored proficient on the math test in 2007, and 30.8 percent were proficient in reading. For eighth graders, 27.7 percent scored proficient in math and 27.2 were proficient in reading.

Other interesting details in the report include:

•Rhode Island teachers are the highest paid in the nation when compared with other similar professions in the state. These include: accountants, architects, clergy, compliance officers, commuter programmers, counselors, editors and reporters, human resources specialists, insurance underwriters, occupational and physical therapists, registered nurses and technical writers. Nationally, teachers earn just 88 cents on the dollar, when stacked against comparable professions. In Rhode Island, however, teachers earn about $1.12, or 12 cents more on the dollar than other comparable professions. North Carolina scored lowest, with teachers there earning about 79 cents on the dollar, compared with other similar professions.

•The report also found that Rhode Island ranks low — 44th — in the number of children whose parents are fluent English speakers, a potential risk for the future success of students whose parents do not speak English.

•While the state ranked among the highest —7th — in its per-pupil expenditure (adjusted for regional cost differences), $10,581 a year per student, it scored at the bottom in school finance equity. Rhode Island ranked 42nd in its ability to bring all students to the same median level of what districts spend per pupil.To see a copy of the report, visit www.edweek.org and click on “Quality Counts 2008.”

jjordan@projo.com