Last week The Public’s Radio‘s Ian Donnis quoted Rhode Island Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green in a piece on what schools Providence politicians choose for their own children:

“Nobody wants to send their child somewhere else when they can send them to their local school,” she said. “But if that school’s not good enough… I mean, I have to tell you there’s some school (sic) in Providence that have a two percent proficiency rate – two percent. That’s not okay, that’s just not okay for any family.”

Actually, I do send my child to a school in Providence with a three percent proficiency rate on the RICAS test in math and four percent proficiency on the spring 2018 exams (the most recent available) – Roger Williams Middle School in Providence – and we have found that it is more than “okay” for our family.

In her sixth grade year at Roger WIlliams, my daughter was challenged academically by her teachers and was generally satisfied and successful. She played on the undefeated city champion basketball team, as well as the chess team, and enjoyed working on the sets for the school’s big production of Beauty and the Beast last spring.

There is a very full slate of activities thanks to the Providence After School Alliance (PASA), and with no commute plenty of time to take our daughter to other nearby enrichment activities like workshops at Downcity Design.

At Roger Williams our daughter is not subject to the same competitive social pressures that many students endure in suburban and private schools. That is no small benefit.

We might not have considered Roger Williams if it was not in walking distance from our house, and if it did not have a new advanced academics program based on the well-established model used for decades at Nathanael Greene Middle School. While the advanced academics program is selective – students scoring in the top 15 percent on standardized tests are invited to apply at the beginning of the fifth grade year – the program has been under-enrolled in its first few years and my understanding is that as long as space allows it is open to any student with a good academic record and teacher recommendations.

We visited all the Providence Public middle schools offering advanced academics and decided that the other schools had nothing that would justify the time wasted in a commute across town.

Beyond that, Roger Williams reflects the community that we have chosen as our home, and we recognized the people there as “our” people: our neighbors from around the world, the artists and activists running seemingly uncountable non-profits filling in the gaps for our children, the enthusiastic if embattled teachers and coaches, and their indomitable Principal Christina Gibbons, leads the school with the personal touch that can only come from someone who herself grew up in the neighborhood.

Regarding the rest of Donnis’ piece on where Providence politicians send their children to school, I would point out that education is not the only area where Rhode Island’s public services suffer from being unknown and mis-understood by its leadership, with public transit and the maintenance of public beaches being just two examples in the news recently.

I don’t begrudge Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green choosing to send her children to tiny private schools rather than Providence Public Schools. I don’t think that is hypocritical.

What is absolutely hypocritical, however, is to suggest that I should select schools for my children based on standardized test score proficiency rates when she sends her children to private scores that do not publish standardized test scores and presumably only inflict a fraction of the regimen of RICAS, STAR, NGSA and other tests required by RIDE and PPSD. According to Donnis, her daughter is attending the Gordon School, and her son is attending the Wolf School.

Are we to believe Commissioner Infante-Green choose these schools based on their test scores? Or does she apply different standards to decisions she makes for her children from her expectations for Providence families?