By RUSS OLIVO

CENTRAL FALLS — A blue-ribbon commission empaneled by Gov. Donald Carcieri to chart a course for shrinking the achievement gap in urban school districts unveiled a 100-page report with seven major recommendations Tuesday.

“Building Our Future — An Agenda for Quality Urban Education” calls for better teachers, more emphasis on early childhood literacy programs and more innovation in public schools, among other things. Eighteen months in the making, the report was the work of the Rhode Island Urban Education Task Force, led by Walter Simmons, the executive director for the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, who joined Carcieri in making the report public in the library of Central Falls High School.
Carcieri commissioned the UETF to address lagging academic achievement in the state's urban core — specifically, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Providence and Newport  and Providence. Carcieri said the economic destiny of the state is tied up with the success of youngsters from those areas, which represent a high concentration of economically disadvantaged students who are also struggling to learn English as a second language.
“As far as I'm concerned this is the issue of our time – what's happening to our urban school districts,” said Carcieri “We've got work to do and that's what this report is highlighting.”
The library was packed with professionals from the business community, educators, philanthropic foundations and members of the media as the UETF unveiled its findings.
addition to Carcieri and Simmons, others speakers included former Supreme Court justice Robert G. Flanders Jr., chairman of the state Board of Regents; Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist; and Pawtucket lawmaker Peter Kilmartin, a champion of education in the House.
After watching two Central Falls students perform a West African dance in a prelude to the press briefing, Flanders said the state's education system needs to be a little more like those limber performers.
“We who are involved in education need to stretch ourselves a little,” said Flanders, a proponent of innovation. “We need to loosen up a little while we go about our work.”
Simmons, quoting a Hebrew proverb, said the educational system needs to prepare children for a world that not even their teachers can imagine. But the UETF says urban schools are still tethered to the blue-collar, manufacturing legacy of the past.
“For the majority of the twentieth century, Rhode Island's families and communities thrived on an economy driven by textile and jewelry manufacturing and fishing,” the introduction to the report says. “Unfortunately, too many of our classrooms throughout Rhode Island and our nation still resemble twentieth- rather than twenty-first century learning environments.”
The report makes seven major recommendations for uplifting academic performance in urban schools:
• A high quality pre-kindergarten program, giving priority to children in communities with low-performing schools
• A comprehensive system of supports for K-3 literacy, with a focus on English language learners
• More learning time, to be implemented in partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Education, the governor's office and community-based organizations, with technical assistance from the National Center on Time and Learning. A number of such initiatives are already in progress, including the Woonsocket Afterschool Coalition.
• Multiple pathways for students success, including increased access to adult education, advanced placement and other courses offered at non-traditional times. The UETF recommends coupling such initiatives with “early warning systems” that flag students at risk of dropping out, with customized prevention programs and more alternatives to traditional school settings.
• A statewide “educator quality development system” incorporating new methods of evaluating teacher performance and providing further opportunities for professional development. Such an initiative would require “regular and substantive evaluation for all teachers with evidence of instructional effectiveness as a major evaluation criterion,” according to the report.
• Create collaborative relationships involving RIDE, the urban districts, charter school leaders and mayoral academies to develop infrastructure and policies to foster creative approaches to education. The report specifically calls for the creation of a “zone of innovation” - a sort of topographical locus where pilot programs could be taken for a trial run.
• More cross-district cooperation in developing uniform curricula, instructional programs, assessment and educator quality. Such an initiative would result in “a shared sense of accountability for outcomes” and help sustain the call for continuing educational reform, the report says.

“Taken together, these recommendations can fundamentally change outcomes for Rhode Island's children,” said Simmons. “We urge their implementation in the same spirit that they were developed: collaboratively and with great hope for Rhode Island's future,” he said.
The task force convened for the first time in January 2008 and later broke off into sub-groups in each of the seven study areas. Although hundreds of people were interviewed and consulted in compiling research for the report, the UETF had 37 core members, including Hans Dellith, superintendent of the Pawtucket School Department; Dr. Robert Gerardi, superintendent of Woonsocket Public Schools, Richard DiPardo, president of the Woonsocket Teachers Guild and Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals.
The membership also included professionals from political circles, the judiciary and higher education, including Superior Court Judge O. Rogieree Thompson – whom Congress is currently considering as President Obama's appointment to a vacancy on the First Circuit Court of Appeals; Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed; Sandra Powell, director of the state Department of Employment and Training; and the Rev. Brian Shanley, president of Providence College.
The report did not address the ongoing debate over a fair funding formula that urban districts are pushing in the legislature, arguing that they receive a disproportionately small  share of aid compared to their suburban counterparts. Nor did members map out a strategy for obtaining funding to implement the initiatives it espouses as the path toward closing the achievement gap.
But Carcieri said that if state leaders and educators can rally around the specifics of a blueprint for reaching their objectives, the money will come. He said there is no dearth of philanthropic organizations and government agencies eager to get behind a program that demonstrates a unity of political will and the promise of concrete results. While the state must ultimately take responsibility for paying its own way, Carcieri said, “The funders out there – and there are lots of them – are looking for a place that's got a plan.
“The nation is looking for a model, looking for a formula to succeed. In the short-run, we can attract resources to that.”
Term-limited Carcieri, with a little more than a year  left on the job, said “I don't want this to be a report that sits on a shelf somewhere - I feel strongly about getting this done.” Echoing Carcieri, Simmons said that even though the UETF has fulfilled its main mission, the panel will remain in place to monitor the implementation of the recommendations and provide technical support.
Gist said the report represents the most current and informed thinking on the kinds of change the urban schools need to implement in order to put them on a level playing field with more privileged districts.
“All of this is based on strong, solid research about what we know needs to happen to our systems,” she said. “I am excited about these recommendations. I endorse the recommendations of this report.”
Speaking after the press briefing, DiPardo, Woonsocket's teacher's union president, said there is little doubt that educators will feel threatened by increasing scrutiny of their skills. But he said change is surely coming – the urban districts have just gotten a $200,000 grant from the American Federation of Teachers to begin exploring ways of ranking teacher performance, coupled with new efforts to improve their skills.
“Of course it's going to scare them – until they understand it,” said DiPardo. “The leadership recognizes the old way of doing business is not sufficient anymore. You can't just protect the status quo.”
Woonsocket public schools have some serious problems, even in comparison to their urban counterparts. The EUTF says Woonsocket spends less per pupil than any of the five cities that were the focus of the report – about $8,797 – while second-from-the-bottom Pawtucket spends $9,364. Central Falls spends $11,277, Providence, $10,239, while Newport was the biggest urban spender, at $11,812. The statewide average was $9,736.
Despite its comparatively high per-pupil costs, Central Falls still has the lowest graduation rate among the five cities – just 46 percent. Pawtucket had 48 percent; Woonsocket, 54; Providence, 58; and Newport, 60. All fall far short of the statewide average of 70 percent.
But Gerardi said that in some respects Woonsocket is ahead of the curve on  reform. The district has already implemented some of the innovative changes the UETF report calls for, such as online classrooms and educational enrichment programs in partnership with private, non-profits groups.  Another local non-profit, Connecting for Children and their Families, has just won a $3.2 million federal grant to develop a pre-school literacy program for underprivileged children.