The city of Cranston is located in the northern part of the state, bordering Providence. There are about 17,000 children under the age of eighteen in this area. The Cranston School District is divided into two different halves and has two different high schools, Cranston East and Cranston West. The Eastern district tends to have a lower family income that many of the families of students that are in the Western district. .
The Cranston district seems to be economically better off than some of the other communities in Rhode Island. The average family income in Cranston is $34,528, which is higher than the statewide average family income of $32,181. They have a higher family income and a lower percentage of children in poverty, 9.5%, than the statewide of 13.5% in poverty. This school however, even though the average family income is higher than the states average, the city of Cranston spends less money of their students. Compared to the state average of $8995 per student, the city of Cranston gives $7972 per student. This is over $1000 that the school spends on each student that attends there. .
The Education in Cranston seems to have some better numbers than the statewide numbers I found on the kidscount web site. Twenty one percent of the students are enrolled in special education, which is the same percentage for the state of Rhode Island. They also have a higher percentage of fourth-grade students who scored at or above the proficiency level for reading in the New Standards English Language Arts Reference Exam Basic Understanding/ Analysis and Interpretation. Their numbers were much better than the states. Cranston's numbers were 85%/74% compared to the Rhode Island numbers of 71%/57%. This shows that the elementary schools in Rhode Island are meeting and exceeding the standards. Another fact that I found impressive was the fact that Cranston has more high performing schools that the state.
