In response to the governor's actions, the head of the National Education Association Rhode Island said, "If I wasn't a charitable person, I would call what happened at the State House [Wednesday] night a terrorist act."

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, February 28, 2004

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

Cutting nearly $8 million from state aid to schools is akin to high treason in the world of public education in Rhode Island. Now, teachers unions and school committees are lobbing a few salvos back.

Robert Walsh, executive director of the National Education Association Rhode Island, had this to say about Governor Carcieri's proposal to cut local aid: "If I wasn't a charitable person, I would call what happened at the State House [Wednesday] night a terrorist act."

Walsh then urged the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education to "seize the bully pulpit and say loud and clear that we need more aid for education. Let's have that fight and win it."

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal responded by saying that the governor "believes that people of good faith can engage in substantive discussion on this issue without resorting to using words like 'terrorism.' '

In Rhode Island, where school aid is considered a right, not a privilege, the deep cuts blindsided teachers, principals and school committees, who expected the governor to, at the very least, level-fund the schools.

"Instead of having a real discussion about how we can raise revenues," Walsh said, "he's dumping the burden back on the taxpayers."

Walsh said Rhode Island ranks 44th among all states in terms of the share of money -- 37.4 percent -- that the state pays for public education. Hawaii pays 89.3 percent and Nevada pays 28.5 percent.

He said the proposed tax cuts are making allies out of interest groups that normally don't see eye-to-eye: school committees and town councils, labor unions and parents.

"I think the governor is out of touch with reality," said Marcia Reback, executive director of the American Federation of Teachers Rhode Island. "He has a penchant for trying to stir up huge controveries."

With Providence discussing laying off almost 700 teachers and other districts considering cuts to art and music, Reback said it's not unreasonable to ask that the state meet what she describes as its obligations to children.

That Carcieri wants to reallocate most of the $7.9 million to the state's charter schools, which instruct only a fraction of Rhode Island's 150,000 students, and to the Met School, an alternative high school in Providence, only adds salt to the wounds, the unions said.

"Unfortunately, the governor has set the charter schools and the Met up for attack by everyone who supports public schools," Reback said. "They have a target on their back now."

Mike Crowley, vice chairman of the Middletown School Committee, sees the governor's budget as part of a larger Republican strategy to dismantle public education in this country.

"I see a pattern here, and the pattern begins with a Republican White House that underfunds No Child Left Behind," he said, referring to the package of education mandates signed into law by President Bush. "Now you have a Republican governor pushing everything down to the local level."

Middletown, which faces a $225,000 loss in aid, would have to trim teachers and programs, because the town is in no position to ask for a tax increase, Crowley said.

"Devastating, absolutely devastating," was how Mary McClure, president of the Providence School Board, characterized the potential loss of $3 million. She said she is puzzled that Carcieri would give $2.1 million to the Met, which is adding 180 students, while cutting Providence, which expects its enrollment to increase by 400 students next fall.

While McClure said she respects the governor's attempt to make local schools more fiscally responsible, she said Providence is already operating on a bare-bones budget. The city recently sent out pink slips to almost 700 teachers -- and that was before the governor proposed cutting the district's local aid.

Carcieri said Thursday that teachers need to begin paying some of their health-care premiums. But teachers in nearly every school district already have health-insurance copays, according to Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees. Two districts, Woonsocket and Barrington, require teachers to pay 20 percent of their health-care costs.

"Can we do a better job?" Duffy said. "Yes. But it's not fair to single out school committees and say we're the source of the problem."