December 1996
Report to the State Board of Regents

BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS


Prevention

Last month, the Regents gave preliminary approval to a state aid proposal that included major improvements in special education. The first two goals of the proposal are to prevent unnecessary special education placements and to ensure that students with disabilities who are returning to or remaining in the general education program have the support they need to meet higher standards. In the weeks since, we have listened to reactions in four public forums. As a result, I propose five enhancements to make the proposal even stronger in the area of prevention:

Here is what these enhancements will mean. The first year would be a time of building capacity for prevention, funded by the $80 million in support services. The existing public excess cost formula would remain in effect for that year so that there would be no loss of special education funding, but maintaining the excess cost aid at current levels would immediately end the connection between placement categories and funding. The phase in would begin in the second year so that schools would have the opportunity to prepare. We would use a slightly higher base -- 12 percent instead of the original 11 percent -- to provide a richer incentive for prevention strategies. The insurance fund would protect schools under unusual circumstances as noted. The 12 percent base will be adjusted up and down based on the poverty factor so that poor districts won’t lose funds to wealthy districts. These new features respond to many of the issues raised in the forums.

With these enhancements in place, I recommend that the Regents confirm their support of the proposal.

Our conversation about special education

The topic is complex, sometimes frustrating, often emotional. And why wouldn't it be? It's about children and families -- the very heart of our work. We obviously have problems with the growth, quality, and costs of special education. We have to talk, but how we talk about it matters.

It shouldn't be a conversation about blame. For example, these problems are not the fault of school boards. The funding system reinforces structures that limit choices and raise costs. Want an example? Look at the consultant teacher concept. The idea is to provide extra help for a mildly disabled child. Unfortunately, the aid doesn't cover the cost, so we place the child in a more restrictive setting to get the services.

This is not the parents' fault, either. Parents are doing what we would do, fighting for what they think their children need. And special education as a system didn't cause the problems we face. The roots are in a school finance and budgeting system that has starved general education programs. It has just become too hard for some communities to put the supports in place. The result is rapidly increasing special education placements.

Children with learning difficulties must be able to get the help they need in the general classroom. We must look to federal definitions of handicapping conditions. Vague definitions invite problems. Strong program quality assurance guarantees will go a long way toward earning parents' confidence. And funding. We need an education funding system that supports high quality in the general program, buys prevention and does not continue to limit choices in special education to high costs alternatives. That is exactly what the Department and Regents' proposal attempts to do.

New York City governance

As I write, the Legislature has not yet decided the matter of New York City school governance but I write hopefully. Chancellor Crew has shown me that he has the will and heart for major improvement in the schools. Now the Legislature must give him the full authority. The Regents and the Department have done their part in this matter by demanding improvement or closure of the low performing schools and by setting the deadlines. Elected leaders now must either give Chancellor Crew the power to fix those schools or accept personal responsibility for their condition.

The pace of change

The Regents and the Department started powerful strategies for change. The public and our colleagues in the schools need to know that we are aware of the strains and that we are watching to see that the pace is right. We are.

Look at the actions of the last year: high standards, Regents Exams in four subjects, School Report Cards, state aid and special education reform. It is a lot. And it adds up to a difficult set of changes. We needed to do these things together. Standards mean little without the tests; in fact, it was the Regents Exam requirement that drew attention to the standards. State aid has to change to put funds behind the standards. And we cannot ignore the continuing increase in special education placements that result in large measure from the decline in capacity in general education.

The major change of the last year is that the system has momentum toward higher performance for all students. Many individual schools always had this momentum, but it is easier to maintain that momentum when the whole system is moving.

The State Education Department and the Regents must support schools by listening and using what we hear, by providing materials such as the Resource Guides at a level of quality that meets local expectations, and by lining up resources to match our expectations. And we should not add more initiatives.

A word to the parents

Our work notwithstanding, parents are really the ones who set standards for their children. I have written a letter to parents about what they can do and what we are doing and why in the matter of boosting student performance. This is the first of a series of letters about what parents say concern them. Many school principals send regular parent letters. It’s a good practice.

Professional discipline: protecting the public interest

The State Board of Regents protects the public interest by oversight in the matter of professional discipline for 38 licensed professions. Beginning January 31, any member of the public will be able to get vital licensing and disciplinary information on more than 610,000 professionals in New York by using the Internet. The public will able to check whether a particular professional is currently licensed and whether or not there have been disciplinary proceedings involving that professional during the previous year. The information will be expanded on March 3. This is yet another result of the system improvements achieved by the Office of Professions.

Education is the key to welfare reform

New York has to put more than 60,000 more welfare recipients into jobs this year to meet federal deadlines. There are nearly 200,000 welfare recipients in education programs right now. VESID, Education for Gainful Employment (EDGE), Adult Literacy, and Vocational Post-secondary programs have helped people get skills and then get jobs.

Education is the key to welfare reform. Almost half of adults on welfare do not have a high school diploma. At least 20 percent of current welfare recipients face obstacles to employment because of a disability. Last year, VESID returned 15,587 individuals with disabilities to work. About 6,200 of them were receiving welfare, so their success saved $10.2 million in public assistance and brought $54.6 million in salaries to New York families. In New York City, 79 percent of welfare recipients placed in jobs through EDGE in 1993 are still working. The obvious conclusion: effective education programs put New Yorkers to work. Education is part of welfare reform.

Report Cards are in the schools

More than 4000 School Report Cards are in the mail to schools. Many school leaders have begun to talk to their communities about these results and their plans to improve performance. The Regents wanted to see that parents can get the Report Cards. We have provided computer disks in advance to the media where they have consented to a January 3 embargo. The major papers plan very extensive coverage, including publication of the data. In the week following the release, we will open an 800 number to help parents and others who have not been able to get copies from their schools. (The reason for the delay is to encourage the first contact with the school.) Major education associations including the School Boards, Superintendents, Big Five Schools, and the principals associations are urging their members to make the report cards available to all parents. We are contacting parent groups with information about the report cards, and how to get and use the information. The report cards have been translated into Spanish and Haitian-Creole. Parents will also be able to get the report card via the Internet through their local libraries.

Now comes the really important part. Soon, it will be time for communities to sit down and talk about the results and what will be done about them. I believe that local school leaders are poised to do just that.

Building a better place to work

Goal 6 in our strategic plan says “Our work environments will meet high standards.” Our plan commits us to these actions to improve the State Education Department as a place to work:

That staff survey merits a few more words. A Department-wide team conducted the staff survey. The results will appear in mid-January. I have not seen the results but I expect this initial set of results to be very low. Some of the reasons are obvious. We lost many colleagues last year through layoffs, and all the rest had to endure a long period of uncertainty. We have a new strategic direction, and change is difficult. People are working very hard, and there are a lot fewer here to do the work. And we are still working on some of the problems identified in our Rockefeller Institute Report of last December. But a listing of the reasons is not the same as hard work to find and resolve the causes of the problems. It’s risky to make this kind of information public, but we accept the risk because we must know our current situation in order to improve.


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