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Last month we celebrated the Board of Regents vote to put achievement first for Rhode Island kids by approving the Achievement First Mayoral Academy’s application to open a school in Providence.
Now there’s a bill that would quash that progress and penalize every public school student attending a mayoral academy. It’s up to us to put achievement first for Rhode Island kids once again.
Today the Senate is hearing SB 2709, a bill that handicaps mayoral academies with needless regulations and cuts per-pupil funding for their students by 25 percent.
We must stop this bill. Click here to write the Senate leadership.
Rhode Island Mayoral Academies have had groundbreaking results in closing our state’s achievement gap and boosting performance for all kids. The latest state test results put Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy middle school at the head of the pack, with 89 percent of its sixth-graders reaching math proficiency, compared to the state average of 62 percent.
We need to support the public schools getting results for our kids, not hobble them. Mayoral academy students are still public school students and deserve the same funding that their peers at traditional schools get.
SB 2709 doesn’t help any of our children and therefore has no place in our law. We’ve proved once that we can get public officials to put achievement first. Now let’s do it again. Please take action today.