Name: Diana Lam
Occupation: Superintendent of the Providence School Department
Background: Born and raised in Lima, Peru. Before coming to Providence she was most recently superintendent of schools in San Antonio, Texas, after having been a superintendent in Ohio and Massachusetts. She previously was a bilingual administrator for the Boston School Department, and the principal of elementary and a secondary schools.
Education: Bachelor’s degree from St. Benedict College, Minnesota, masters in education from Boston State College, now part of the University of Massachusetts, and has done all but her dissertation to earn a Ph.D. from Boston University.
Age: 51
Family: Married, two children.
Residence: Providence
DIANA LAM: ‘What is most important is not equity of input but equity of output.
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PBN: You seem to have traveled a lot. Why did you choose to come to Rhode Island? LAM: I actually like change and feel that at times it just requires that you have an open mind. There were a number of reasons why I chose to come to Providence. I wanted to be in an urban area. I was attracted to the diversity of the student body and the community. I gathered there was a strong sense of urgency for educational reform among the constituents and I wanted to come back to the East Coast.
The Providence School Department has a diverse student population, many of whom don’t speak English as a first language. How is the school department dealing with that issue?
I don’t think speaking a different language is a problem. I actually think that our ability to know more than one language is something that should be encouraged. I see that as an enrichment piece. We want all of our students who speak a language other than English to learn English. We want them to be fluent readers and writers. We want them to be able to speak the language, not only the colloquial language, but also be able to speak fluently in academic settings. We have classes for all of our students who don’t speak English as a first language; we have English as second language classes. We want to have the same high standards for their achievement as we have for all of our students. We offer classes for our immigrant children at all levels because they come at all ages.
There seems to be a move to link schools with the business community. What are your plans to enhance that relationship?
Oh we definitely want to be connected to the business community; it’s a very healthy kind of partnership. I also think the business community here in Providence is really committed to seeing public education succeed for a variety of reasons, not only for the economic value of a good education and what it does to a community, but I also think they see it as a moral issue, that all of our students regardless of their ethnicity, or language, or religion, or whatever, are entitled to a good education. I have met with different business groups at this point and will be speaking at some of their functions. They have been good on offering advice and recommendations to me, so we have an ongoing relationship. On the other hand we also would like to connect our individual schools with individual businesses.
Do you think that the state should provide substantially more funding to the urban communities like Providence? If so why?
I think it’s unfortunate that it seems communities are being pitted against other communities. My view on this is that we all want our children to get a good education, and therefore the state must fund the educational systems of all these districts to the degree it’s necessary to insure that all children are receiving a good education. What is most important is not equity of input, but equity of output. What are the outcomes that we want to have? Are all of our children meeting those outcomes? Though I am not going to compare us to another community, I can tell you that given the needs of our students, especially in the area of literacy, which is going to be one of our main goals in the school district, we will require additional support systems for our children so they can all become fluent readers by the third grade.
The governor is pushing to develop a task force to look at ways to fund public education – what would your message be to that group?
Well, not unlike what I already mentioned that in funding public education we need to ensure that every child has received an adequate education, that the funding should be determined by what is needed so that every child can receive an adequate education.
The important piece here is equity as defined by output. It’s interesting how we define equity. To me what’s most important is that students meet the goals we set for them.
What is your position on charter schools? Do see them as detrimental or helpful to the public school system?
I feel fine about charter schools. I think we need a variety of governance models in our public schools and charter schools are a different kind of governance. I would hold charter schools to the same standards and the same accountability system.
Currently some schools in Providence have an all day kindergarten while others remain with the half-day schedule. Would you like to see all of the schools with a full day kindergarten?
I definitely support an all-day kindergarten because I think many of the students we serve in Providence have not had the learning opportunities of other students in different districts, so they often don’t come to school ready to learn. This forces us to take a few steps back. I feel that a full-day kindergarten would help us in that area.
What about other kinds of social programming such as a free breakfast? Critics of the program have said these types of things often label students. Do you believe that is true?
It depends how it is done. In my previous district, we offered free lunch and free breakfast to everyone so there was no label of any kind. Here I am actually not sure; we don’t have universal feeding so I would like to see about a provision that might make Providence eligible for universal feeding. I think what we want to ensure is that our students are eating and aren’t going hungry.
The governor is pushing to eliminate residency requirements. Providence and Pawtucket are the only two cities that still have the requirement. How do you feel about removing the residency requirement and do you think it could create a more diverse work force for the district?
What’s most important for a school district is to have the ability to recruit the very best teachers or the very best administrators to work in a district. And if we think about it in that way then residency poses an obstacle to that kind of recruitment. I think what is most important is to have a qualified teaching and administrative staff. Do we want diversity? Of course we want that, but I think they go hand in hand. There is a shortage of teachers in certain areas, and there is a shortage of educators that come from a minority background.
Are you doing anything to celebrate Providence’s diversity?
I am speaking to different community groups from different ethnicities, and that has given me a better perspective of what the issues are in terms of a multicultural setting. I believe that we need to take a close examination of our curriculum. I believe it should include a multicultural perspective; that we should be celebrating each others history and backgrounds.
What are goals you are setting for Providence?
We have three major goals, the first of which is to improve student achievement, and we will be focusing on literacy this year. We also want to really create a structure by which we engage our public – whether it’s our parents, our taxpayers, our community members, the business community or other institutions that collaborate with us. The third goal is one of capacity building. If we are going to do a better job then we really need to build capacity within the organization. By this I mean creating the systems that will make us more efficient. For example, creating a technology infrastructure, but it also means professional development for our teachers, for our administrators. It means creating learning opportunities for everyone within the organization.
What do you think is the biggest issue facing students today?
Achievement is the greatest challenge. Many of our students can’t read, and certainly not at the grade level they are assigned to. That creates a frustration that later on manifests itself by poor attendance or dropping out of school.
Do you think it’s important to be seen in the schools, and does that help increase students’ involvement in their schools?
I think it’s very important. I am just getting to know the community, the schools, the teachers, the administrators, the groups that make this community a vibrant one. That is a more important function than others that come my way. I enjoy going to the schools, visiting with the students, and the teachers. A superintendent must be an instructional leader, know the instruction and ask the right questions. I feel very strongly that every child in this district, all 26,000 of them, are like my own children. I want for them what I want for my own children, nothing less than that. I am going to work to make sure they all succeed.
