School Type: Public	School Setting:
Level: K-12	School Design:
Content Presented By:
The Education Alliance at Brown University

Background Context

Demographics

The state of Rhode Island serves about 160,000 public elementary and secondary school students in 316 schools. Approximately 11,000 teachers are employed at 38 different districts.

Student Data

• Students enrolled in public school (2001): 86%
• Students' ethnic backgrounds (2001): 74% White, 8% Black, 14% Hispanic, *.5% Asian or Pacific Islander
• Students eligible for subsidized lunch programs (2001): 34%
• Students receiving ESL or bilingual education (2001): 6.5%
• Students enrolled in special education programs (2001): 20%

Educator Data

• Average teacher salary (1999): $45,650
• Secondary school teachers with a degree in the subject they teach (2000): 76%
• Number of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (2001): 62
• Educators engaged in active I-Planning (2002): 370
• Educators serving on the I-Plan review panel (2002): 107

Background

In 1997, the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education voted to eliminate the life teaching certificate for all educators who earned their initial certificates after May of 1997. They reasoned that improving student achievement was impossible without also improving teacher quality. They viewed ongoing professional development as one critical means of ensuring that educators continued to grow in their craft.

Public forums were held to hear what educators in the field had to say about this change in the certification process. While not philosophically opposed to ongoing professional development, many educators voiced concern over the idea of taking prescribed courses over the life of their careers. Their concerns about the current requirements for re-certification focused on the following:

• Lack of relevance of prescribed courses to what they need to do their jobs
• High cost of graduate courses
• Lack of time and flexibility
• Unavailability of needed/prescribed courses
• No validation or credit for school-based professional development done to help improve the teaching and learning in their schools

This initial feedback from Rhode Island educators sparked the creation of the I-Plan. Knowing that eventually all educators in Rhode Island public schools would be responsible for renewing their certification throughout their careers, the Rhode Island Department of Education was concerned that the re-certification process provide a pathway to genuine professional growth. The Department convened a design team of educators representative of all stakeholder groups -- Rhode Island teachers, administrators, union leaders, university education professors, and Department of Education personnel -- to study the process of teacher re-certification in other states and to come up with a distinct Rhode Island model. Subsequently, a Title II Teacher Quality grant was received to help finance the design and development work of this new re-certification process. The I-Plan project is now entering its 4th year as a pilot, with hopes of soon being fully recognized and implemented as a change to public policy.

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This resource is developed and maintained by The Education Alliance at Brown University. Seed funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Send comments to: loom@alliance.brown.edu