Angélica Infante-Green is seen speaking to reporters on Aug. 16, 2024, at the Rhode Island Department of Education’s downtown Providence offices. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
Rhode Island Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green isn’t going anywhere.
The state’s Council on Elementary and Secondary Education on Wednesday night unanimously approved a three-year contract extension through 2027 for Infante-Green, who has led the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and oversees the entirety of elementary and secondary public education in the state since April 2019.
Infante-Green’s fresh employment agreement will be negotiated and finalized by the K-12 council’s chair and overseen by the full Board of Education, said Victor Morente, a RIDE spokesperson, in an email Friday. (The K-12 council and the Board of Education are the governing bodies of RIDE.)
The new contract’s details weren’t available Friday, Morente said, but added that he “will share more information when possible.”
“Commissioner Infante-Green is committed and eager to continue her work to create more opportunities and pathways for high-quality learning for all students and ensure Rhode Island’s state education system continues to move forward,” Morente wrote. “Throughout her tenure, the Commissioner has led several initiatives and efforts to better support school districts and improve student outcomes statewide.”
Mobilizing to address COVID challenges
The Infante-Green era was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, the administration of former Gov. Gina Raimondo and Infante-Green’s department managed to get kids back in school sooner than in other parts of the country, thanks in part to a task force quickly mobilized to hasten the return to in-person learning. The relatively speedy recovery of traditional classrooms in Rhode Island made national reporters curious.
Attendance in R.I. public schools is on the rebound after pandemic plunge
“The kids who were attending school in-person had better academic outcomes than those who were remote,” said Susan Dominus, a New York Times reporter who covered Rhode Island’s reopening for The New York Times magazine, in a 2021 interview.
Those positive outcomes, Dominus thought, were achieved even if they were driven by administrators who are different from the communities they serve: “Many of the important players, including the state education commissioner, Angélica Infante-Green, were not themselves people whose life experiences reflected those of the families in their schools.”
Other accomplishments of Infante-Green include joining the Board of Directors for the Council of Chief State School Officers in June 2023, and in October 2023 becoming the first woman of color named to the National Assessment Governing Board. The commissioner continues to lead a campaign to reduce post-pandemic absenteeism, an effort that has drawn national attention from outlets like Chalkbeat, a popular education news site.
And in 2022, Infante-Green led the creation of new graduation requirements to help prepare students for college or careers. The state has seen particular success with technical education in recent years, with 92% of technical education students graduating in 2023, the highest graduation rate in the state.
According to the state salary portal, Infante-Green’s total compensation in fiscal year 2024 was $296,174.
Saga of test scores
Infante-Green’s initiation into teaching was as a bilingual teacher in the South Bronx. Eventually, she moved up to the New York State Education Department’s Office of Instructional Support, where she worked as deputy commissioner.
Supporting multilingual learners has remained a concern for Infante-Green, who herself learned English in school. When she was appointed commissioner in 2019, the Providence Journal reported Infante-Green’s initial remarks on the struggling school system that was now her responsibility:
“Less than 6 percent of this population met the standard on the math and English sections of the Rhode Island Common Assessment System (RICAS),” Infante-Green said then of English language learners. “The data isn’t new. But it’s pretty startling on paper. This is the work I live for. This is the work I’ve done.”
RICAS data from the 2022-2023 school year shows English learners have improved a smidgen on math, with 7.2% of English learners statewide meeting or exceeding standards. But RICAS scores for English Language Arts have remained largely impervious to change, and in 2022-2023 only 5.5% of students met or went above expectations
RICAS scores for students who recently exited or completed English learner status, however, were much higher the same year in both English and math, with bilingual students only a few percentage below their non-learner peers.
Providence Superintendent Javier Montañez, left, and Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, right, are seen speaking to reporters at RIDE’s downtown Providence offices on Aug. 29 2024. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
Tension in Providence
About six months after Infante-Green became commissioner, the state seized control of the Providence Public Schools Department (PPSD), the state’s largest school district. That made Providence the lone companion of the Central Falls School District, which has been under state control for decades. On Aug. 29, the K-12 council approved Infante-Green’s recommendation to lengthen the state takeover by up to three years.
The long-struggling Providence school system and the historical lack of proven solutions has led to intense emotions being flung in the commissioner’s direction — like when state Rep. Enrique Sanchez, a Providence Democrat, suggested in March that the commissioner be impeached over the closure and merger of Providence’s 360 High School.
At times fierce criticism of Infante-Green’s leadership has been especially apparent at Providence school board meetings. The mayor-appointed board will switch to a mix of elected and appointed officials in 2025 — something of a moot point, since the board’s powers have been mostly negated under the terms of the state takeover. Resolutions board members pass have largely been symbolic, like one in August that called for an end to the state takeover of PPSD.
“The commissioner has not been accessible to me as a board member,” Providence School Board member Michael Nina said at an Aug. 21 meeting where the board unanimously voted to approve a return to local control for Providence schools. RIDE representatives attended the meeting, but the commissioner did not.
Several of Nina’s colleagues echoed his sentiments, but board member George Matouk pushed back: “I don’t think that the constant vilification of the commissioner is helpful at this point. I’m not saying that the commissioner shouldn’t be here tonight, or shouldn’t have come at other times…[But] some of the things that I heard said about the commissioner were, like, you would think it was the Salem witch trials or something. It was really over the top.”
“Mr. Matouk, I respect you, but I have to say, I think you might have just gaslit half the board,” said board member Anjel Newmann.
“I believe it’s our obligation as a school board to always vote in favor of what community wants, and community wants a say, community wants a voice,” Newmann said. “This is not about vilification. This is about keeping it real. If the commissioner showed up to meetings every month and was accountable to us in the community, I might be voting differently.”
‘There is going to be much more progress’
The RIDE commissionership has long been a heavy crown to wear. Former commissioner Deborah Gist lasted six years on the job, from 2010 to 2015, but in that time she magnetized national attention both negative and positive for her prioritizing of student outcomes and teacher accountability — an ethos that put her at odds with teachers’ unions.
Gist spearheaded the manufacture of the educational funding formula, which determines state aid to local school districts. But the pièce de résistance in Gist’s tenure was arguably overseeing the firing of every teacher at Central Falls High School in 2010, due to the district’s lamentable test scores. President Barack Obama liked the move; unions did not. Gist moved on to her native Oklahoma to serve as superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools (where, ironically, she voiced support for unions) before landing at her current positions as a senior advisor at the University of Tulsa and a superintendent-in-residence at educational nonprofit Transcend.
But when Gist’s contract was extended in 2013, the council voted 7-3 — a narrower margin of confidence compared to Infante-Green’s unanimous approval Wednesday night. Gist’s contract was also extended for only two years.
That’s not to say union tensions have disappeared: Providence Teachers Union President Maribeth Calabro declined to comment Friday on Infante-Green’s extension.
“These last few years, we have been in a very difficult situation,” Infante-Green told reporters at an Aug. 16 press conference about Providence schools. “But even with that happening, there has been progress. So if everybody’s rowing in the same direction, I anticipate there is going to be much more progress.”
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