The first step to reimagining our public schools is to understand what’s actually happening inside of them.
Today RI-CAN is thrilled to unveil a new resource for Rhode Islanders to do just that: RI-CAN’s second annual State of Rhode Island Education report.
Click here to download the report.
The study holds up a magnifying glass to Rhode Island K–12 public schools by examining how our students are doing on both state and national assessments, how prepared they are for college, and how they stack up against the rest of the country and the world. Here are some highlights:
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We are making some progress. Rhode Island was one of a few states in the country to improve in both fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics since 2009.
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But we’ve got a long way to go. Only 33 percent of 11th-grade Rhode Islanders are at least proficient in math on our most recent state test.
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Our kids are not prepared for tomorrow’s jobs. By 2016, a mere four years from now, 74 percent of Rhode Island jobs will require at least a two-year degree and many will require a bachelor’s degree.
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But only 43 percent of Rhode Island adults have a two-year associate’s degree or higher.
Working together we can build a movement, grounded in the facts, that gets results for Rhode Island kids. We hope you will join us in celebrating what’s working in our public schools while also recommitting to fixing what isn’t so that all of our kids get the education they deserve.
Image courtesy of Indiana Public Media via Flickr Creative Commons.