Education, workforce investments need patience to grow

RICHARD R. SPIES, became chairman of the Providence Plan in 2006, and continues to oversee the growth of the nonprofit and implementation of demonstration projects that have helped fulfill its mission. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY
RICHARD R. SPIES, became chairman of the Providence Plan in 2006, and continues to oversee the growth of the nonprofit and implementation of demonstration projects that have helped fulfill its mission. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY

Richard R. Spies became chairman of the Providence Plan in 2006, and continues to oversee the growth of the nonprofit and implementation of demonstration projects that have helped fulfill its mission.
Founded as a private, nonprofit organization in 1992, ProvPlan’s original intent was to develop and oversee a comprehensive and strategic plan for the revitalization of Providence.
Since then, the nonprofit has expanded to offer a comprehensive DataHUB for the entire state on everything from employment and income to race and education. The organization also offers three programs, Building Futures, which trains people in the building trades; Ready to Learn, which focuses on urban early-childhood education; and YouthBuild Providence, which aims to help young adults succeed through hands-on education.

PBN: The Providence Plan has a dual mission today: empowering city neighborhoods and promoting change at the state level. How do you manage those two missions?
SPIES: Our focus, at least in recent years, has been more at the policy level. By assembling data and figuring out ways to display it and analyze it, we’ve tried to bring data and evidence into the policy discussions so policymakers can make decisions and we can influence decisions based on evidence: where gaps are and where public resources can fill in those gaps. Having the data lets you see where the strengths and weaknesses are, which can influence where we make investments in the future.
PBN: Can you give an instance of where this worked effectively?
SPIES: Before I got on the board, 15 or more years ago, people identified that the question of preschool education was potentially really important. In order to both test this and address the weakness that it suggested, the ProvPlan, because nobody else was in a position to do it, launched Ready to Learn. [We] collected data but we also created a program to demonstrate that you could do something about this … by educating the caregivers. Those very small day care centers … could be trained to be educators in addition to being caregivers. That has resulted in hundreds of caregivers in our urban areas who now constitute a core of trained educators at the preschool level. That is – [the R.I. Department of Education] would agree with this – one of the reasons we were able to get Race to the Top funds for preschool education.

PBN: What issues would you like to see Mayor-elect Jorge O. Elorza address?
SPIES: We’ve actually had conversations with the mayor-elect before he was a candidate because we tried to recruit him to our board. He is a believer in evidence-based decision-making, so I hope he will look to us as one resource. The issues we’ve identified are education and preschool education, workforce development and health care, broadly defined.

PBN: How about with Gov.-elect Gina M. Raimondo?
SPIES: Same issues. One thing both the mayor-elect and governor-elect do understand is: you’ve got to make investments. You can’t just flip a switch. It’s consistent work; improving the basics [such as] education, workforce development. All those things require patient capital: Not because you don’t think it’s possible to get immediate returns. But you’re willing to wait.

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PBN: In what way do you feel your influence has made a difference?
SPIES: Instead of being guided by ideas brought to us, we developed ideas from the data we assembled through the DataHUB, or demonstration projects like Ready to Learn or YouthBuild Providence. We were then presenting ideas that came out of the evidence. That was the biggest shift. Over the last [few] years, we’ve discussed how we’d push for those ideas. The process of evolving into an evidence-based, advocacy group has taken place over the last decade.

PBN: It has been seven years since you launched your newest demonstration project, Building Futures. Why so long between new programs?
SPIES: What we’ve tried to do is take programs to the next level. We don’t feel we have to launch a new program just for the sake of launching a new program. Ready to Learn is at a different level than it was a few years ago because of Race to the Top.
Two years ago, we began a partnership with the Providence public schools where students in YouthBuild can earn a high school degree from a Providence public high school even though they’re taking classes and working at YouthBuild. It has been accredited by the school department. Students graduate with a high school degree. That is a whole new level [compared to] the GED. It’s very early to tell, we’ve only had one graduating class – but kids are going onto higher education.

PBN: What is your vision of where this nonprofit is headed in the next decade?
SPIES: The strategic plan … vision is: We will make a difference in important policies in the state and city; they go together. One change that has occurred already is the scope is beyond Providence. But, to me, what needs to happen is taking these ideas to a scale that makes a difference. Success needs to be built into the system, whether we do it or somebody else does it. •

INTERVIEW
Richard R. Spies
POSITION: Chairman of Providence Plan board of directors
BACKGROUND: Spies began an academic career at Princeton University, where he served in various administrative positions and lectured in economics. From 2002 through July 2012 he served as executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president at Brown University. In addition to his role at the Providence Plan, he is a member of the board of the Slater Technology Fund and works part time at ITHAKA Harbors, as co-principal investigator of a study of the efficiency and effectiveness of public higher education in selected states.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in mathematics, Amherst College, 1967; master’s degree in economics, Princeton University, 1969; Ph.D. in economics, Princeton University, 1972
FIRST JOB: Paperboy
RESIDENCE: Providence
AGE: 69

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