AWTUCKET – At an Oct. 30 meeting of the Woonsocket School Committee, Supt. Patrick McGee pointed out that Pawtucket has similar demographics to that city but has higher scores in state testing.

“I’d like to reach out to Pawtucket to see what they’re doing, what types of things they have in place,” he said.

Woonsocket school board members then discussed why Pawtucket might be doing better than all other urban districts, speculating that it might have something to do with that city gearing its curriculum toward the Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System tests.

Pawtucket is toward the bottom of the list on statewide RICAS results, but is ahead of the three urban core communities of Providence, Central Falls and Woonsocket. It is somewhat behind urban core district Newport in math and English language arts.

In ELA, 24.33 percent of Pawtucket students met and exceeded expectations, compared to 17.22 percent in Providence, 14.1 percent in Woonsocket, and 12.62 percent in Central Falls. That was up four percentage points on last year’s proficiency rate of 20 percent.

A total of 17.77 percent of Pawtucket students in grades 3-8 met and exceeded expectations on the math part of the test, compared to 11.92 percent in Providence, 11.87 percent in Woonsocket, and 7.9 percent in Central Falls. Last year, 17 percent of Pawtucket students scored proficiently in math.

Those compared to 38 proficiency on ELA and 30 percent math proficiency statewide.

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