In 2022, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that average scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) declined significantly from 2020 in both reading and mathematics. Nine-year-old students saw a 5 point decrease in reading and a 7 point decrease in mathematics, while 13-year-old students saw a 4 point decrease in reading and a 9 point decrease in mathematics. These concerning trends are present nationwide, but are particularly prevalent in Rhode Island due to an alarming achievement gap along socioeconomic and demographic lines.
Educational achievement—measured by subject proficiency assessments, college readiness, and other quantitative outcomes—is heavily influenced by a variety of socioeconomic and demographic factors. Rhode Island school districts are often incredibly dissimilar with regard to these characteristics, contributing to the large achievement gap. Rhode Island Kids Count has designated Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, and Woonsocket the “four core cities” due to their high concentrations of children living in poverty. From 2019 to 2023, 64 percent of Rhode Island children facing poverty lived in one of the four core cities. These four cities highlight the educational disparities in the state, with their school districts performing significantly below those of the wealthiest cities on key achievement indicators. The four wealthiest cities in the state, East Greenwich, Barrington, West Greenwich, and Jamestown, often perform at the opposite end of the educational achievement spectrum, demonstrating the severity of the gap.
Public school districts in the four core cities are disproportionately low-income and have higher concentrations of Black and Hispanic students compared to Rhode Island’s statewide population. Similarly, the public school districts in the four wealthiest cities do not reflect the demographics of the state, but instead have significantly lower percentages of low-income students and lower concentrations of Black and Hispanic students, being mostly high-income and white.
Student mobility, or the movement of students between schools or school districts, is a strong indicator of educational achievement for a given area. School districts with higher rates of student mobility often have lower subject skills and graduation rates. The four core cities all have higher mobility rates than the state as a whole. According to the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and Rhode Island Kids Count, the student mobility rate for the state is 12 percent for the 2022–2023 school year, while it is a higher 23 percent in Central Falls, 17 percent in Pawtucket, 20 percent in Providence, and 19 percent in Woonsocket. The aggregate student mobility rate for the four core cities is 20 percent compared to the lower statewide average of nine percent. School districts in the four wealthiest cities, on the other hand, all had mobility rates significantly below the statewide average: 3 percent in Barrington, 4 percent in East Greenwich, 8 percent in West Greenwich, and 5 percent in Jamestown.
One of the most basic and easily identifiable measures of educational achievement is subject proficiency. Students are usually assessed in reading, math, and science to determine how well they are performing relative to other students and schools, as well as how they are progressing as they move through age groups. In the four core cities, only 19 percent of third-graders and 13 percent of eighth-graders were meeting reading expectations for their grade level, with as low as 8 percent of third-graders in Central Falls meeting expectations. In the four wealthiest districts, proficiency scores were much higher, with at least 53 percent of students in each age group tested meeting grade-level standards. In Barrington, eighth-grade proficiency reached as high as 74 percent. Similar trends can be seen in math and science scores. The four core cities had a third-grade proficiency rate of 25 percent and an eighth-grade proficiency rate of 4 percent, with some cities, such as Central Falls, falling even lower, with a proficiency rate below 5 percent for both age groups. Proficiency in the wealthier cities is much higher, ranging between 41 and 89 percent for third-graders and 45 and 63 percent for eighth-grade students. The science proficiency measure is unique given that only fifth, eighth, and eleventh grade students are tested, whereas the other proficiency tests are given for every age group. Despite this difference, the major trends still hold true, with the four core cities seeing science proficiency rates between 10 and 13 percent for the three age groups compared to the four wealthier cities seeing proficiency rates ranging from 42 to 68 percent between different districts and age groups.
The RIDE reviews proficiency rates and other measures of academic achievement to determine which, if any, schools require state-level intervention to improve the quality of their education. RIDE takes into account a wide range of factors and expert opinions from individuals deeply familiar with education systems and standards, specifically as they apply in the Rhode Island context. Schools identified in need of “comprehensive support and improvement” by the state’s department of education are those that are in the lowest performing 5 percent of schools based on proficiency scores, have graduation rates below 67 percent, or score at the bottom for some other identified academic indicators. Twenty-one schools in Rhode Island were identified as in need of this kind of state intervention, with 17 of those schools being in one of the four core cities. State and local leaders must consider other possible solutions to the achievement gap. The Rhode Island achievement gap is clearly an issue of inequity, so to address these outcomes, leaders must address the structural inequities that cause them. Public schools in the four core cities and the four wealthiest cities do not show a significant difference in per-pupil expenditure, with districts in the four core cities often spending slightly more. The issue lies not with budgets but in the way time and resources are invested in the student populations. School districts must prioritize personalized approaches to learning for students and find ways to motivate students and their families to value and prioritize their education and academic potential. Students in poorly performing schools are often discouraged from believing they can excel, and there must be a shift in messaging to influence a shift in performance.