Why You Should Care About Carl Lauro Elementary School
(Or, Where Rhode Island Schools Fit Into the Story of the National School Privatization Movement)
Disclaimer: For the full story on the related local Mt. Pleasant High School controversy and all other RIDE and PPSD controversies—and why all of you should care—see my other Substack articles entitled “Why You Should Care About Mt. Pleasant High School,” “McGowan Off the Mark on Mt. Pleasant,” “RIDE and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” and “McGowan Off the Mark on Mt. Pleasant Once Again.”
Welcome again to Providence, Rhode Island, a city where public schools merge faster and with less public accountability than large multinational corporations do. Oh well, if it is not Mt. Pleasant High School, it has to be somewhere else. The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) never rests, and neither do I.
Let me reiterate: “the newer and fewer approach to school construction and maintenance” is a failed educational model. Why? Because newer and fewer ultimately means “[prioritizing] building new schools over maintaining (i.e., not demolishing)” old ones like historic Mt. Pleasant High School (MPHS). What it really means is uprooting neighborhood schools, taking a wrecking ball to historic school buildings, and eventually replacing the sense of community they create with a vast charter school network. The experiment has been tried before. It has been attempted in Chicago, in Philadelphia, in New Orleans, and in many other places. And it has failed. Time and time and time again.
Clearly, we are dealing with much more than just another local issue. With that in mind, we must turn our attention to Carl G. Lauro Elementary School. In December 2022, an announcement from RIDE leaked out via Twitter that both Alan Shawn Feinstein Elementary School and Carl G. Lauro Elementary School would be shut down.
The completely unexpected announcement predictably drew the ire of parents and community neighborhood activists alike. In fact, the outcry was so severe that Rhode Island’s own General Assembly held hearings on the matter. Alas, RIDE and “school choice” supporter Rhode Island State Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green have never learned any lessons from this disastrous rollout.
They have continued to close down local public schools like Fortes Elementary, converting them into charter schools. Then, rumors in the community circulated about the possible closure of Mt. Pleasant High School. Then, RIDE and the Providence Public School District (PPSD) appeared to delay responding to my public records request about Mt. Pleasant High School school facilities policy. When they did respond, they only enclosed widely available public documents which did not even address the specific issues at hand.
And now, they have insisted on finishing the job at Carl G. Lauro Elementary. This recent article from local reporter Alexandra Leslie just about covers it. Essentially, on Thursday night, “the Providence City Council was presented with a resolution that would authorize” the current mayor “to enter into a 30-year lease agreement with Achievement First Rhode Island Inc. and Excel Academy Rhode Island.”
Yes, my fellow Rhode Islanders, that’s right: Mayor Brett “I Declare War on the Poor” Smiley is now set to go out to battle in support of RIDE’s plans to expand the local and national charter school network. For those of you who do not know, Achievement First and Excel Academy are charter school corporations that have spread their imprint all across New England and as far as New York. To add insult to injury, “the lease agreement shows the city is asking for an annual rent of”—you guessed it—$1.
I really wish I were kidding. Of course, the agreement also “stipulates [that] the schools must make a minimum of $14.3 million worth of capital improvements on the property.” What a deal. As Providence Teachers Union President Maribeth Calabro put it, “[y]ou close down a thriving, functioning school with Providence Public School students in it to give it [all away].” I could not have put it any better. If that is not bad enough, “[i]t costs too much money to fix for the kids that were in there, but it’s not going to cost too much money to fix for the charter school kids?” Sounds about right, unfortunately.
Predictably, RIDE cheerleader and City Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan is one of the sponsors/sellouts for the resolution. However, the future of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad leasing agreement might come down to the decision of Providence City Council President Rachel Miller.
If you wish to voice your opposition to Councilwoman Miller directly, please reach out to her at millerforward13@gmail.com or call her office at (401) 521-7477.