Gist

PROVIDENCE — State education officials have unveiled an ambitious plan to increase student proficiency, revamp failing schools, improve teacher quality and shrink gaps between low-income and middle-income students, even as the state struggles to dedicate enough resources to public education.

State Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist shared a draft of her strategic plan with the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education on Thursday. The 20-page plan is the result of more than four months of work by Gist, who became the state’s top schools chief July 1, and her staff at the state Department of Education.

The document is Gist’s blueprint for how she wants to improve the school system over the next three to five years. The regents are expected to endorse the final draft at a Dec. 3 meeting.

“I want the plan to be ambitious,” Gist told the regents. “I also want it to be doable.”

Gist said the plan is “a living document” and will be updated or modified along the way, as education officials gather more information.

“We need to keep our eyes wide open and be flexible,” she said. “In many ways, it represents not just the work that’s happened since I’ve been here, but also the work that’s gone on for several years. We are getting a little more ambitious and emphasizing … the sense of urgency we have about this work.”

The plan calls for several significant changes, including:

• Increase the state’s high school graduation rate to 80 percent by 2012 and to 85 percent by 2015, up from 70 percent.

• Make it harder to become and continue to work as a teacher in Rhode Island.

• Pay the best teachers more, based on data that shows they have improved student performance.

• Reduce achievement gaps by 50 percent among low-income and minority students.

• Expand online courses and develop a statewide virtual high school.

• Transform failing schools, particularly in low-performing urban districts.

• Develop data systems that help teachers improve their instruction.

The document also lays out an aggressive timeline for boosting student proficiency in English, math and science.

For example, just 27 percent of 11th graders score proficient in math on standardized tests. Gist wants 37 percent proficient by 2012, and 52 percent proficient by 2015.

Similarly, just 40 percent of fifth graders score proficient in science; Gist wants that percentage to jump to 50 percent in 2012 and to 65 percent by 2015.

She also wants middle school English scores to climb from 68 percent proficient to 73 percent by 2012 and to 80.5 percent by 2015.

Gist said her staff is still fine-tuning this portion of the plan, as they struggle to balance the need to significantly improve student performance with realistic goals.

A couple of the Regents questioned how districts could achieve these higher standards during a period when most schools are making deep cuts in programs and personnel, and the state is unable to increase its investment in education. In fact, Rhode Island currently relies on tens of millions of dollars in federal stimulus money to prop up school budgets — extra money that runs out after next year.

“This is our plan, regardless of whether additional resources come into play,” she said. “We are confident we are organizing our staff and redirecting the resources we already have to these priorities.”

Gist said she hopes the state will receive some additional federal aid in the form of Race to the Top funds, competitive grants designed to make states embrace far-reaching education reforms. Rhode Island will apply for a portion of the $4.35 billion in January, she said.

She also hopes, she said, that the state will adopt a fair and equitable school financing formula in 2010 that could help districts achieve these goals.

Since she arrived in Rhode Island, Gist has forcefully criticized the state’s low test scores and troubling achievement gaps between the state’s most vulnerable students — low-income, minority and special-education — and their more advantaged peers, calling such discrepancies “shameful.” Gist has also made teacher quality a cornerstone of her tenure, raising the bar for future teachers and promoting two other changes: an educator ethics code and rigorous yearly evaluations for teachers and principals.

More substantial changes are coming. Gist said the state Education Department will also move aggressively to help the state’s lowest-performing schools.

“We absolutely have a commitment to intervening comprehensively in our most struggling schools and districts,” she said. “What we are working on right now is developing our strategy to do that successfully.”

jjordan@projo.com