Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist. File photo by Steve Klamkin WPRO News
By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
State Education Commissioner Deborah Gist says she hopes to stay in Rhode Island and working with the next governor, adding the two major candidates for the office have both talked about education as a critical component of the state’s future.
“I came to Rhode Island to work with the people here to turn our schools around, and I want to be here and be a part of that for the amount of time that that takes,” Gist said in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday.
“I hope to continue and look forward to having those conversations with the right people when all of that gets settled over the next few months,” she said.
Gist’s future was also an issue four years ago during the transition from Republican Don Carcieri, who appointed her in 2009, to then – Independent Governor Lincoln Chafee, who retained her as Education Commissioner.
She was granted a two-year contract extension in 2013 after vociferous objections by teachers’ unions and individual educators upset with the implementation of education reforms, including teacher evaluations and high-stakes testing, which has since been deferred.
Gist’s fate is renewed with the nomination of candidates for governor Allan Fung by Republicans and Gina Raimondo by Democrats.
“Both of these candidates, both the Republican and the Democrat have talked extensively about education, their commitment to it, their recognition that it is absolutely critical to our turnaround of our state to have a quality public education system. So I am very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with whoever is elected,” Gist said.
Gist spoke with WPRO News as she released an accounting of Rhode Island’s effort to implement the federal “Race To The Top” four-year, $75 million dollar grant.
“This is a journey that we’re on together as a state. We have made tremendous progress and we’re very, very excited about all the work that has happened in the last four years,” Gist said.
The federal money was intended to improve data systems and evaluation processes, and to adopt Common Core, described as a set of clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and literacy and mathematics, developed by state education chiefs and governors in 48 states.
“Well the goal down the line is to see increases in student achievement. We want our graduation rate to increase,” Gist said.
Gist also offered some insight into Clay Pell, the millionaire candidate who waged an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor.
“You know, I had some really interesting conversations with Clay when he was at the U.S. Department of Education. We both have a shared commitment to world languages, for example. We talked a lot about dual language instruction at the time which is something that’s a long time passion of mine, so we had a shared interest there.”
“And, it was interesting to hear his comments throughout the primary, because so much of what he’s talking about are deep values of mine as well, the arts in our schools, world languages. These are all very important.”
“I think that what I want to make sure everybody in Rhode Island knows is that we don’t have to choose between having an education system that is rich and engaging and wonderful that’s full of the arts, as it should be, that’s full of opportunities for hands-on instruction and project-based instruction that is full of opportunities for internships and things like that. And, also having our students achieve at high levels and at the kind of levels that are going to make them competitive in a global economy and make our state competitive in a global economy,” Gist said.
