Deborah Gist Leaves RI

With no celebration or jubilee, Deborah Gist has left her position as Commissioner of Providence Public Schools.  During her tenure, Ms. Gist was known for a variety of neoliberal policy decisions that had a negative impact on students and teachers under her command.  Whether it was union busting the faculty with teacher evaluations, cramming students into crowded classrooms by closing down troubled schools, enforcing a culture of conformity with Common Core and standardized testing, or committing her own form of academic fraud by playing funny with the statistics on her Ed.D dissertation, Gist was a politician who used the Ocean State as a Petri dish for bad ideas, bad policy, and bad leadership.  Her exit is a welcome gain for all those capable of independent thought.