How Ready Is Providence? Report Committee

In 2003 Ready to Learn Providence established an ad hoc Report Committee, assembling 15 men and women who could bring expertise in all facets of a child’s well-being: health, education, child-care, family life and community support. R2LP looked to this group, which included parents as well as early-care professionals, to oversee the development of a report that would measure and track the readiness of Providence’s children for school.

The committee’s initial assignment was to identify issues that figure prominently in a child’s readiness for school and then develop indicators that could be measured. From the set of identified issues, the committee decided on 24 indicators, which were grouped into three categories: Readiness of Parents, Caregivers and Teachers; Child Development and Well-Being; and The Child’s Environment.

Data were obtained from a variety of sources, including state agencies, the Providence School Department, Providence Head Start, the Census Bureau and R.I. Kids Count. As much as possible, the data were analyzed at the neighborhood level.

The final 75-page report – How Ready Is Providence? Advancing a Community Conversation about School Readiness in Providence – was released in March 2005. Download the report.

The report serves as the curriculum for R2LP’s AmeriCorps program. It will also be used by R2LP to help guide future data collection and analysis.