PROVIDENCE — Expand the school day. Offer preschool to all students. Allow students to earn a high school diploma by taking night classes or enrolling online.

These are just a handful of the preliminary recommendations from Governor Carcieri’s Urban Education Task Force, which was charged with improving education in Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and Central Falls. The committee includes public school officials, college presidents, business leaders, legislators and members of the nonprofit community.

Rhode Island educators have been debating how to rescue the urban school districts for decades, so what makes this report different? Warren Simmons, executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and the task force chairman, said that in the past, similar groups focused on the strengths of individual schools and programs, which have led to “isolated lighthouses of success.”

This report, he said, proposes broad-based partnerships and programs that are designed to lift urban schools as a whole out of the low-performance doldrums.

The task force also recognized that the state, which faces a massive budget deficit and is tied with Michigan for the highest unemployment rate in the nation, can no longer afford to throw money at the problem of low-achieving urban schools.

“In these difficult economic times, we can’t rely on the public sector to create the system we need,” Simmons said in an interview last week. “The education system needs to be bailed out by both the public and the private sectors.”

As a result, the group’s recommendations rely heavily on partnerships with higher education, the business community, nonprofit organizations and the faith-based community.

The success of urban students is critical to the state’s future economic success, according to a recent report by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. By 2020, one in five members of the state’s work force will come from the urban core school systems. Yet, only about one in three students in urban districts reads at grade level. In rural and suburban districts, more than 69 percent are proficient readers.

“This is a five-alarm fire and we should be rushing to the scene,” said Angus Davis, a task force member who serves on the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. “Getting a quality education shouldn’t be determined by what zip code you’re born in.”

One of the most important recommendations is the call for a quality pre-K program, beginning with a pilot program next year for children in low-performing school districts. Rhode Island is one of only a dozen states that has no state-financed pre-K program, despite the fact that research has shown that three-and four-year-olds who attend a high-quality preschool program have higher graduation rates and lower rates of teen pregnancy and are less likely to repeat a grade or be placed in special education.

The task force doesn’t put a price tag on an early-childhood program. It does say that pre-K should be offered in a variety of existing settings, including daycare, Head Start and public schools. The state Department of Education is already planning a pilot pre-K program.

Boosting childhood literacy is critical to continued academic success, the task force said. By age four, the average child in a family receiving welfare tends to have a considerably lower vocabulary than the average child of a working-class family, according to a recent study.

The report recommends that urban elementary schools offer 20 minutes of daily phonics instruction, set aside time every day for children to read individually and in small groups, and test students frequently to catch those who are struggling. Schools should teach vocabulary early and often. And when a child falls behind, that student should be pulled out of class for additional small-group reading instruction.

“There is solid recognition that student achievement depends on the ability to read by fourth grade,” said Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Kids Count and a task force member. “This report proposes practical ways to get students the help they need to catch up.”

One of the biggest challenges facing urban school districts is the number of teens who drop out of high school. High school graduation rates hover between 45 and 60 percent in the state’s four major cities. According to the task force, schools must offer nontraditional ways for students to earn a high school diploma, such as opening an adult high school that operates evenings and on weekends, creating online courses, expanding career and technical programs and increasing dual enrollment programs that permit high school students to earn college credits.

The task force avoided potentially controversial recommendations, such as consolidating school districts or negotiating a statewide teachers contract. “A dramatic change is necessary,” Davis said. “But these recommendations are a step in the right direction.”

Simmons stressed that the recommendations are not carved in stone. Over the next three months, the task force will hold a number of gatherings to get feedback from community and city leaders, unions and the public.

“We have to change the mindset about education,” Simmons said. “The question is, how do we develop the political will to get these resources?”

lborg@projo.com