May 1996
Where will the resources come from? That's a serious question, and leaders must produce answers. Board members, superintendents, and teachers acknowledge the call for higher standards, but they are realists, too. They think about outdated texts and buildings, training for teachers with no experience in Regents courses, and they know how far some students are from being ready. Can we really do this?
Yes, as the Regents have said, we can. And we must. But it will be very difficult. We can win new resources, but only as we also reallocate what we have. But the first and most powerful strategy to gain educational resources is to promote the standards themselves.
The Regents vote on an all-Regents exam approach created a turning point. It eliminated the low standard route to a diploma, and this will force New York to confront patterns of inadequate support for education.
Many educators argue that a crisis has been there all along. True, perhaps, but many have managed to look the other way. It is acceptable to attack education in broad strokes and get away with it. There are no penalties for delaying and then reducing education funding. It has also been acceptable in New York to graduate many young people with modest skills. The Regents vote last month changed all of that. Because now we know that there is a challenging test. We know when it is, who has to take it, and what students will have to do to pass it. So we have a crisis. A crisis that will attract support, if there are leaders.
John Gardner, in his fine book called Excellence, writes this:
It's time for all of us in education to call upon that stouter-hearted self. What must we do? We must stand up to those who denigrate the significance of leaders in communities. None of us should tolerate any longer the wholesale criticism of whole groups of teachers, board members or superintendents. We need each other.
That said, we must be more accountable for results. Schools that have school report cards do this, and it's impressive to see. Not all of the report cards show good news. School leaders who take responsibility for telling the bad news and what they are going to do about it deserve our respect.
BOCES provides another example of needed improvements in accountability. Their regional leadership is important and must be beyond reproach. As a result of a situation in one county, I examined all district superintendent salary contracts, and after finding them consistent with statutory limits, I directed all district superintendents to certify that they received no other off-contract compensation. In addition, the Department will immediately begin a series of detailed financial audits of BOCES on a schedule to audit a third of these centers every year. The Department has reallocated auditing resources to accomplish this. A uniform system of allocating and reporting costs will enable the member boards to compare unit costs.
The BOCES will not receive aid for non instructional services such as lawn maintenance and trash collection which puts them in competition with private business and has nothing to do with instructional support. And I will propose that aid for technology hardware be available to districts outside of BOCES when two or more districts show the State Education Department that they can beat the BOCES price. Finally, the Department will examine all of the district superintendents' roles under statute and regulation to ensure that this institution is effective and productive.
We must have a clear strategy. Education meetings produce ever longer lists of things that must be done to meet higher standards. Aim for shorter lists.
What's important is to connect everything. The assessment must match the standards. Classroom practices must prepare students for the assessments. The public has to know what is going on and give permission. We need our friends in human services if all the kids are to get to school ready to learn. And we must keep the conversation going with other people as well. We must build alliances with business, human services agencies, parents, and the wider community.
The differences are obvious to any school visitor. One class moves from writing in class about the meaning of a Richard Wright novel in their own lives to a spirited discussion on the book that engages almost everyone. In another class the teacher works hard but does all the talking as students sit passively over desks without a scrap of paper or an open notebook. There are many possible explanations: student motivation, social background, family aspirations, to cite only a few. But we could do something to boost the capacity of teaching. Now that we know the standards, why not pool the experience of the most gifted teachers and make that available to all?
We need a new kind of course guideline. New York must tap the wisdom of the best practitioners to create a set of materials organized for immediate classroom use. Teachers don't need advice but specific suggestions for lesson plans. This material can't come from observers but only from practitioners. Can we envision a New York Academy of outstanding teachers to assemble from around the state a set of these materials? To be useful, the material must be dynamic rather than fixed. Not everyone's bright idea deserves to be included. There should be a jury of expert teachers that decides what to include. The criteria should include at least these: Does the lesson match the standards? Is it consistent with research? Does it work?
The idea is not to create a mandated curriculum. But both teachers and administrators alike have asked why we expect every teacher to make these things up alone. Think how such a body of experts work would focus professional development. And the students would be all the more ready for the Regents exam.
The Rockefeller Institute Report of last winter is still very much alive. Here are some recent actions:
Regents visits to schools serve at least two vital purposes. They help ensure that Regents policy is firmly grounded on the reality in the classroom. These visits also draw the public eye into schools. There is reason for both praise and criticism in the schools but many who have the most say spend the least time in the schools. Regents visits change that by raising the level of common understanding about the schools. Here are notes from recent visits.
Rochester area college presidents are demonstrating the power of collaborative leadership. The higher education landscape in New York is challenging financially, and over the years this has appeared to encourage rivalry among the sectors. That may make short-term sense in the struggle for budget dollars, but it's a bad idea long-term because higher education is the best economic development engine we have. It must present a united front of high expectations and high productivity. In Rochester, the presidents from public and independent colleges meet frequently. They have a common recruiting brochure that presents their community as a college town. They support cross-registration of courses to ensure that students get what they need no matter where they are registered. They avoid duplication in program offerings.
The teacher education deans are making a similar case for joint effort. Leaders from the Higher Education Council for Teacher Education told me recently that they think standards for teacher education programs should be much higher. That is a welcome message against the backdrop of higher student standards.
I keep thinking of the oath written for me by the students of P.S. 31 last September on my first day. They made me promise to find all the teachers that the students needed.
Acting Deputy Commissioner Jeanine Grinage and I launched a Teacher Certification Mandate Relief Group this month. By September, they will report on the teacher certification regulations that are obsolete or nonfunctional. We asked them for advice on the benefits of specific regulations and the consequences of amending or repealing those regulations. We asked also about the cost and amendments needed to create the pool of highly qualified professionals that the new Regents standards demand.
The Division of College and University Evaluation has now eliminated its entire backlog of outstanding program proposals. Within a six week period, from March 15 to April 30, the team acted upon 509 outstanding proposals for new or modified college programs. In tandem with this effort, the team is redesigning the program review process. The Teacher Certification Unit has also significantly reduced its backlog of applicants awaiting a certificate or credential review.
On May 20 we expect to see plans for the 16 New York City schools under registration review that were the subject of my letter last fall. We have worked closely with Chancellor Crew and support his efforts to improve these schools. I fully expect that the City will have approvable plans for all the schools. In addition, I have asked Shelia Evans-Tranumn, Associate Commissioner for New York City School and Community Services to provide a contingency plan should the unforeseen happen. I will report further to the Regents in June.
The library community is promoting an important bill -- advocated by the Regents -- that will create a statewide "Electronic Doorway Library." For $11.4 million, most New Yorkers will get access to the world of information on the Internet through their local library. This is a crucial tool for education, as 63 Assembly Members and 28 Senators have recognized by co-sponsoring the bill.
1 John W. Gardner, Excellence; Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? New York: Norton and Company, 1984. P. 149
