Education

Brown begins a series of public lectures, art exhibits and other events Friday with an open campus and a lecture from World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, who happens to be a Brown alumnus (class of '82).

Kim's talk is sold out, but there will be live internet streaming for anyone who couldn't get tickets.

All this week we're marking Brown University's 250th birthday with a series of conversations reflecting on its past and looking into the Ivy League university's future. This morning (Wednesday) Rhode Island Public Radio's Scott MacKay talks with historian Ted Widmer about Brown's more recent past and where it's heading in the future.

Rhode Island elementary students are still well behind their peers in New Hampshire when it comes to Mathematics.

The latest score report from the New England Common Assessment Program shows 59 percent of Rhode Island’s 3rd-8th graders were proficient in Math, compared to 70 percent in New Hampshire.

60 percent of Maine students scored proficient in Math and 62 percent in Vermont.

State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is releasing additional results from the standardized test known as NECAP. The report will include school-level data for all Rhode Island public schools, and comparisons to other New England states using NECAP.

At the end of February, the Rhode Island Department of Education released an abridged summary of NECAP results, revealing scores for seniors facing a new test-linked graduation requirement. The early release was intended to give schools and students time to prepare if they did not do well enough to earn a diploma.

Democratic mayoral candidate Jorge Elorza has zeroed in on bussing as he seeks to succeed Providence Mayor Angel Taveras.

Elorza, a professor at Roger Williams Law School, issued a statement yesterday saying Providence’s bussing policy forces many children to walk more than a mile to school each morning.

Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith is stepping down after about a decade at the helm of the union in the state's largest school district.

Smith tells Rhode Island Public Radio’s Political Analyst Scott MacKay he is retiring after more than 30 years in the Providence Public Schools.

More than a year after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut, Rhode Island officials have offered a blueprint for increasing school security. The "Model School Safety Plan" is a lengthy report, intended to guide districts updating their security plans, under a new state law.

I confess, I have yet to wade through the 300-pages of recommendations in the report. It is meant to serve as a model that school districts can adapt for their own use.

Concerns about public education in China are fueling an increasing interest in alternative schools like Waldorf education. The trend is profiled in a fascinating New Yorker article now on newsstands.

Rhode Island’s Education Commissioner Deborah Gist emphasized the positive in her annual State of Education speech last night at the General Assembly. She said Rhode Island students are improving on national testing, and she said 73 percent of this year’s senior class has now scored high enough on the state standardized test to earn a diploma, after thousands of students had to re-take the test in October.