Dear Fellow Rhode Islanders,

Since becoming Commissioner in July, just over 100 days ago, I have spent a lot of time meeting with educators, parents, students, business and labor leaders, elected officials, and other community members. Over the past two months, I have really enjoyed visiting many of our schools to meet students and teachers as they begin another exciting year of teaching and learning.

Everything I have seen so far convinces me that we can become a model for public education around the nation. There is no reason that our students cannot and will not compete against the best students in the world. But we will have to do more to make this happen.

The federal Race to the Top funds could bring unprecedented resources to Rhode Island to help us accomplish our goals. The U.S. Department of Education will distribute these funds to states that have both made progress and shown promise in four vital areas:

• improving teacher effectiveness;
• accelerating the performance of low-performing schools;
• establishing world-class standards and assessments; and
• developing user-friendly data systems.

These initiatives are closely aligned with the set of priorities and the strategic agenda that I am developing to transform Rhode Island education. (See http://www.ride.ri.gov/Commissioner/.)

As we prepare our Race to the Top application, I have scheduled community forums at which you can learn more about our strategic agenda and present your views on education reform. I greatly value your feedback, which will help us to submit a first-caliber application. We will hold community forums on:

Monday, Nov. 9^th @ 6 p.m. East Bay Educational Collaborative, 317 Market St., Warren

Tuesday, Nov. 17^th @ 6 p.m. Northern R.I. Collaborative, 640 George Washington Hwy, Lincoln

Monday, Nov. 23^rd @ 6 p.m. Toll Gate High School, 575 Centerville Rd., Warwick

Wednesday, Dec. 2^nd @ 6 p.m. SORICO, 646 Camp Ave., North Kingstown

Forum in Providence: Date and location to be announced

The U.S. Department of Education will review our strengths and our needs when we submit our Race to the Top application. If we receive the federal funds – and I am confident that we will! – we will be even better positioned to transform our schools and to move our action agenda from vision to reality.

I hope that I will see you and hear from you at our community forums.

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                    Deborah A. Gist

                                                                                    Commissioner

When we try to kick off the education commissioner from selecting the super, we can understand why we show no progress