Article XII of the Constitution of the State or Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (1) establishes it as the duty of the General Assembly to promote schools, to establish a perpetual school fund to support the schools, and to ensure that all donations for the support of public schools or other educational purposes received by the General Assembly are applied according to the terms of the donors. Money is not to be diverted from this fund or in any way borrowed or appropriated for any other purpose. In essence, therefore, the Rhode Island public school system is to be financed and overseen by the General Assembly of the state.
In April 2006, the Joint Committee on Legislative Services let a contract to R.C. Wood & Associates (1) to conduct a series of research projects designed to develop an education finance distribution aid formula that would ultimately ensure that funds were targeted on an as needed basis and in a manner that would ensure that the special needs of all students were met in a reasonable and cost effective manner. R.C. Wood & Associates (3) developed four models accompanied by target expenditures to address varying school and district needs and to use a per pupil average expenditure of approximately $9,500. The overarching goal of the research by R.C. Wood & Associates was to ensure that greater equity would be provided to each school in a manner that would permit the state to meet the goals and objectives of, among other initiatives, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal standards (Jordan, "R.I. Education"). All of these efforts were undertaken in recognition of the fact that Rhode Island needed to develop programs and policies that would ultimately and significantly enhance school performance, student academic achievement outcomes, and provide for alternatives to traditional schools in the form of charter schools (Jordan, "Q&A" 1).
Implicit in the Rhode Island reorganization of the school sy...