White House Puts Focus on Improving Education in Providence

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee co-sponsored an important community summit on January 25 led by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, an initiative by President Barack Obama to improve the academic achievement of Hispanics in the U.S. and increase the nation's competitiveness in the labor market.

Providence is just the tenth city in the country that the White House Initiative has engaged in a Hispanic Community Action Summit. The successful event, held at Rhode Island College, was attended by undersecretaries and officials of the United States Department of Education and a host of city and state educational and political leaders. Mayor Taveras, U.S. Senator Jack Reed, Governor Chafee and Rhode Island College President Nancy Carriuolo welcomed more than 100 civic leaders, administrators, nonprofit directors, educators and students to the daylong session.

"This summit is the first step in our collaboration with the Obama administration to improve our educational system, actively engage parents in educating their children, and ensure that all our students are attending school regularly and reading on grade level by the end of third grade," said Mayor Taveras. "Working in a strategic way with the Obama administration will enable us to apply for federal funds and share ideas and practices with a large national network of educational reform."

In selecting Providence, the White House Initiative said they were excited by Providence's vision for improving public education contained in our recently released Educate Providence report, and by Governor Chafee's commitment to transform education in Rhode Island and attain high levels of student achievement.

According to José Rico, executive director of the White House Initiative and senior advisor to the United States Secretary of Education, the White House Initiative seeks to incorporate the Mayor's vision and commitment in its national strategy for improving educational performance of all Hispanics.

Participants heard from federal education officials before splitting into breakout sessions to discuss issues such as the Educate Providence report, the need to increase the involvement of Hispanic parents in the educational process, student engagement, equitable investment of state education funding, lessons learned from school transformation, and the impact of education on housing and economic development. Each of the discussion groups incorporated ways to increase collaboration among federal, state and municipal governments to improve education for Providence and Rhode Island.

Among the federal and state officials who participated in the day were Eduardo Ochoa, Assistant US Secretary for Postsecondary Education; Brenda Dann-Messier, Assistant US Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education and former director of Providence's Dorcas Place; Gabriel Sandoval, Senior Advisor on Civil Rights for White House Initiative; Miriam Calderón, Senior Advisor, US Administration for Children and Families; and Deborah A. Gist, Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education. Also in attendance were State Sen. Juan Pichardo, State Rep. Grace Diaz, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, Providence City Council members Sabina Matos and Davian Sanchez, and Eva-Marie Mancuso and Dr. Antonio Barajas, members of RI Board of Governors for Higher Education, as well as other elected and community leaders.

According to Anna Cano-Morales, president of the Central Falls School Committee, the day was "a very productive exercise where we discussed a wide range of educational issues. The Obama administration recognizes and appreciates the efforts we are making in Rhode Island and the contributions the administration can do to create a national agenda of educational excellence for Hispanics."

Ensuring that the Obama administration chose to include Providence involved a great effort on the part of the Taveras and Chafee administrations. The proposal to attract the White House Initiative to Providence was initially presented by Fred Fuentes, executive director in the Boston Public Schools and former executive director of the Latino Policy Institute of Rhode Island, and Natalia Rosa Sosa, current secretary of the Providence School Board.

Rosa-Sosa and Fuentes worked with Angela Romans, education policy advisor to Mayor Taveras, and Doris De Los Santos, Director of Municipal Affairs for Governor Chafee, for more than a year to organize the event. This event sought to deepen city-wide alignment to the goals of Educate Providence report published by the Mayor's Education Opportunity Work Group, and nurture the efforts of the White House Initiative to improve the quality of education for Hispanics throughout the country.

The Taveras administration sees this important engagement as an opportunity for stakeholders across the city to continue the conversation about improving education in Providence. Interested community members can continue this conversation with Mayor Taveras and Superintendent Lusi at a second Community Conversation this Saturday, January 28, at John Hope Settlement House, 10 - 11:30 am, 7 Thomas P. Whitten Way. For more information, visit www.educateprovidence.com.