September 1997
New York is rebuilding its schools in many ways this year: the standards are new, students and teachers are preparing for more challenging Regents exams, and educators everywhere are anticipating Regents decisions on graduation requirements by enriching the content and rigor of basic courses. But the school buildings themselves need urgent attention, too.
Last year the Regents short list of top priorities for the Legislative session included the bond act for school facilities. It was also an Assembly priority. I argued for it strenuously. The Legislature moved decisively on this issue and the enacted state budget includes a $2.4 billion bond act proposal that goes to the voters in November. Now that the Legislature has acted, it's a matter for the people to decide. However, I am responsible for providing information on the condition of education. And the condition of many school buildings in all parts of the state is deplorable.
Half of the schools in the state are over 39 years old. More than 85 percent of the schools report a need to upgrade or repair. Air quality, the capacity for technology upgrades, and basic safety are all issues. Bare facts don't tell the story. We need to draw the public eye inside some of these buildings. This fall, the Regents Task Force on Technology and Infrastructure will hold hearings statewide on the condition of the buildings and I will be there.
While it was long in coming, the budget strengthened the foundations for education reform. The $650 million increase in state aid to schools responded to the basic need to build capacity in the schools. The budget also included support for VESID case services, which means that the number of people with disabilities who get jobs will continue the climb of recent years. Higher Education and the Professions remain the responsibility of the Regents. There is $2 million toward the Electronic Doorway Library concept - we will be back to advocate for the rest of what we need - and the Museum and Archives capital project was approved. We received funds we requested for low performing schools.
When we compare our priority list to actual results we would have to conclude that education, including the priorities of the Regents, had a good legislative session over all. And we should also recognize the opportunities that we had to help others along the way. I am happy to report that many times this year State Education Department staff throughout the agency assisted elected officials and constituency groups with their legislative proposals. I believe that these efforts helped secure passage of many of their bills.
Now we turn our attention to the 1999 budget. For the first time, we will present a three-year budget as a signal that the challenges are long term and demand persistent investment. In the state aid proposal, we will continue to work for prevention funds to support reform in special education, and we will renew our long-term campaign to boost reading and transform low performing schools.
Universal pre-kindergarten may be the most far-reaching of many pro-education events in the last legislative session. Children need that year to get ready to read. We need this year to get ready for them. Starting right now, all school districts, including community school districts in New York City, are required to appoint a Pre-kindergarten Policy Advisory Board to plan the program, convene a public hearing, and develop the grant application. The Regents Subcommittee on Early Childhood and the Community is in motion and the State Education Department will offer concise guidance to school districts as they form their advisory boards and grant applications which are due in the Spring.
The Governor signed the legislation amending the role of the Task Force on School and Community Collaboration. The bill, which was sponsored by Senator Cook and Assemblyman Sanders, grew out of the work of the Danforth Team during the summer of 1996, where Regent Bennett and Deputy Commissioner Larry Gloeckler represented us. The Regents will host community meetings in each judicial district over the next few months. The goal is that state government will become much more responsive and flexible in meeting community needs and improving the quality of life for children. A major strategy is to connect human services and the schools.
The Partnership for Children also continues to grow. At the September Regents meeting, the New York State School Boards Association will join the United Way of New York, the Department of Health and the State Education Department in formal collaborations to improve the quality of life for children and their families. The School Boards Association adds so much to the Partnership. Not only does it commit the School Boards Association and its staff to participate in the work of this alliance, but also it brings the resources and energy of local board members to the many community efforts underway. One goal of the Partnership is to develop community report cards as a complement to our school report cards. What a powerful combination that will be.
In October, the Regents Conference on the Professions will bring together national, international and state experts on continuing competency. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader will be the featured keynote speaker, and the choice is a very apt one. Our Office of the Professions is intensely focused on consumer protection. As a result of their work, any citizen can simply turn to our web page to check the professional standing of the 600,000 professionals who practice under Regents oversight. The State Education Department has achieved a dramatic improvement in the quality of our performance in regulating the quality of the professions. Citizens and members of the professions get information that is fast and accurate, our response time to reregister licenses fell from almost six weeks to one day, and we have cleared most of the backlog of unresolved discipline cases. All of this work is about protecting the public.
Many people wonder if the new Regents exams will be dumbed down. Others worry the exams will be too hard. This month, the State Education Department released an Educational Testing Services report on a pilot form of a Regents math exam designed to be taken by all high school students. Out of 2600 math students who took the exam, only 28 percent would have passed with a score of 55 or better. The sample included students in honors and Regents classes, as well as students in special education and Regents competency test programs. Students who scored higher on the pilot questions were those in the more rigorous courses. We also asked the students and their teachers what they thought about the difficulty of the test. Most described it as difficult or very difficult. Very few reported that it was easy.
We need to find the right balance. We must take a hard look at these preliminary results. Later this month, I will appoint a panel of distinguished mathematicians, mathematics teachers, and other citizens to examine the questions, topics, and level of rigor in the pilot mathematics exams. It's vital to review the developing assessment system at every step. In any case, students who entered the ninth grade this month face the familiar Regents Math I.
After months of listening, it's time to decide the matter of graduation requirements. All children need the hard skills and understanding to become citizens, to work, and to be competent, caring adults. If we provide anything less, we do an injustice.
A powerful chain of events has led to the decision before the Regents today. First, the Regents adopted high standards for what all students should know and be able to do. Then they decided that all students must pass five Regents exams to graduate. That one decision dramatically raised the expectations for more than half of the students. Now it's time to ensure that the courses are sufficiently rigorous and rich in content to prepare students for those exams.
As anyone who has attended any of the 16 regional meetings knows, this decision is complex and emotional. We have heard thoughtful arguments for more courses, more flexibility, and for more or less of particular subjects. After much reflection, I conclude that what students need most is more structure within a caring environment. That is, all students need a rigorous, content rich core of subjects. They also need certain "enablers" - time, extra help, teachers who care and have received top-notch training, a safety net for some students, and reasonable flexibility as local schools put this in place. But the most important note we must sound is that students need the structure. Put simply, they need to know a lot more English, math, social studies and science. The Regents exams make the standards in each core subject area concrete. Students must be in a strong course to learn enough to pass the test.
One in five New York students attends a nonpublic school. In the discussion about graduation requirements for public schools, we must not forget the perspective of this other vital part of the education system. For nonpublic schools, independence is the critical issue. If we remember that, watch for unintended consequences, and take care in recognizing the many subtle points of interaction between public and nonpublic schools, we will undoubtedly find that youngsters in these schools will rise to the same standards that Regents have defined for public schools.
Nonpublic schools are, like their public counterparts, intensely committed to accountability. They are especially attentive to what parents think of school quality. Many of them are just as interested in higher level alternatives to Regents exams as certain high performing public school systems are. Comparisons between public and private schools have become commonplace in public discourse, but these comparisons make both sectors uneasy and raise misunderstandings among educators who have much in common. All of this requires continuous discussion with the nonpublic school community.
I have agreed to a series of meetings with the nonpublic school community to show how raising standards can be best accomplished in those schools.
Partners are helping schools find ways to meet standards of academic performance in every area. One such collaboration is the Empire State Partnerships Project, involving the State Education Department, the Council on the Arts and the New York Alliance for Arts Education. Funding from NYSCA grants, combined with a two-week intensive professional development seminar and a year-long support system Website, are providing local cultural institution/school partners with the tools they need to succeed. I was able to observe the two-week seminar at the University of Rochester this July for 23 participating teams from cultural institutions and schools.
