1. Dear Commissioner Gist and Co-chairs Gallant and Page,
I am contacting you as members of the Educator Autonomy Working Group formed by Governor
Chafee. As the State Liaison from the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands
(REL-NEI) to Rhode Island), I regularly check the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education website to stay current on its priorities and initiatives and to see if there are
ways in which REL-NEI might be of assistance. I was very interested in reading about the
formation of this working group formed to address a critical topic that seems to have been given
little attention in recent years. As I read it, I immediately thought that one of REL-NEI’s services,
the Reference Desk, might be of use to you. The Reference Desk is a service that allows
educators to submit an education-related question on which they would like information on the
current research that is available.
In the news article about the formation of this working group, Ms. Page posed the following
question: “How do we make autonomy meaningful and make certain it is sustainable in the
education environment?” I took the liberty of submitting this question to our Reference
Desk. Attached, please find the response containing reference citations along with the abstract
for each. I hope you find this document of use in your deliberations. If there are other questions
you would like to pose, please do not hesitate to contact me (mavery@edc.org). You can also
submit your questions directly through the REL-NEI Website – www.relnei.org – and clicking on
Ask a Question.
If I can be of assistance in some other way, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward
to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
Maria-Paz Avery, PhD
Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands
Education Development Center, Inc.
43 Foundry Avenue
Waltham, MA 02453-8313
617-618-2341
www.relnei.org
EDCInc