April 1998
Report to the State Board of Regents
BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS


Be ready for the question

In another year, someone is sure to ask: "What did you get for the money?" As I write this, the budget process isn’t yet complete, but New York schools are facing the largest increase in state aid ever. On a statewide basis, no school system on the continent has ever had such an opportunity. So when someone asks, "What did you get for almost a billion more in school aid," we want to be ready with a drop-dead answer.

We won’t get far with a recital of past funding shortfalls and few questioners will appreciate how long it takes to get change in schools, even when social problems intervene. No, our answer must be a plain accounting of student performance gains.

Will we be ready? Now is the time to make sure through local budgets that use new resources powerfully. Recent conversations with leaders in both cities and rural areas point to these strategies:

Use a Regents level curriculum to enforce the standards.

Every community has its own approach to these strategies, but the measure of success will be the same. Did the children learn at a higher level? Did test scores go up? Did attendance improve? Did the dropout rate decline?

The idea that resonates best with the public is giving youngsters who need it more time and help. That costs money. And the public seems to think that it’s money well spent. Provided, of course, that it works. That means that school boards and superintendents must be as sure as they can be that they are investing in proven instructional practices.

Some budget specifics

We must use the funds as productively as possible. If leaders in educational and cultural institutions all across New York do what they are capable of with these resources, who knows what we can achieve? To those who wonder whether good fortune can continue, we should say this: the best plan is to be discovered in action and with good results.

Supporting school leaders

The Regents have long signaled their commitment to school leaders and their determination to take up policy issues in this area. It is time to begin in earnest. Attached to this report is my recommendation on how to involve the widest array of talent and experience. We must reflect on the work of leaders, their current situation, the problems, and the policy options. The proposal outlines a very public process that will not only enable the Regents to arrive at sound policy decisions, but also will guide the public to a deeper understanding of the importance of school leadership.

The urban partnership is growing

We discussed the emerging urban partnership last month. Interest is growing. Many superintendents from the small city schools met with us in Albany recently to share their school improvement strategies. My homework to get ready included a two-hour discussion with the leadership team in Niagara Falls and a presentation on results from school and civic leaders in Buffalo, which Regent Bennett attended also. The small city superintendents present signaled their interest in joining the partnership. It’s time to take our policy work on urban education to a new level. The Chancellor and I envision something similar to the process proposed for school leadership.

Making the State Education Department a better place to work

Just as we expect local school leaders to present School Report Cards, we must report results in relation to our strategic plan. At the February meeting, we reported on the first five goals. This month, we have results of the second annual staff survey, which measures goal 6: making this a better place to work.

At an all-hands meeting of the State Education Department on April 1, I said that the work environment does not meet high standards, and that the increase in the overall rating of the work environment from "poor" to "fair" was not acceptable. There were some improvements – in technology, for example. But most of the other improvements were from such a low level last year that we cannot yet claim success.

We must take specific actions involving quality of management, security, filling vacancies, abandoning lower priority work, communications, and overall office cleanliness. For example, to improve management, we must set clear expectations, give managers time, training and coaching to meet expectations, and then remove those who cannot or will not do the job. We have set expectations already through written performance agreements with every manager. We provided some training, but it was not of the quality needed. I have, therefore, directed that a basic management training program be provided to each manager from front line supervisors on up. I also directed Deputy Commissioners to ensure that managers actually manage, and to make personnel decisions accordingly.

I have made specific assignments in each of the other problem areas. In the all-staff meeting six months from now, senior management will explain what they have done to improve results.

Electronic information for all libraries

There is insatiable hunger out there for information –- to do one’s job, pursue education, to keep current on public events, and for a thousand other reasons. It is expensive for libraries to remain current with publications. Smaller libraries just can’t do it, and even the largest collections must make unpalatable choices. But there is a solution. Hundreds of journals and newspapers are available through commercial electronic databases. The State Library is leading a statewide committee to plan how New York libraries could pool their buying power to make these resources available everywhere. The group is creating a three-year demonstration, using up to $1 million of the new Federal Library Services Act funding to support statewide subscriptions to hundreds of journals and newspapers.

Special education reform gains a supporter

The Long Island Association has joined the Regents in calling for the reform of special education funding. This influential group of business leaders has spoken out at an important moment, and their support signals the opportunity. The budget just adopted by the Legislature increases aid to special education and includes an increase in prevention funds that are at the heart of the strategy to build local capacity to educate children with disabilities. With the budget behind them, the Legislature can now turn to this critically important matter.

The rural perspective

Rural schools as a group performed well on the last school report card. I shared the statistics with a large group of rural school superintendents, and probed for what produced the good results. Here are notebook jottings on what they told me:

Fewer options produce a stronger focus… With fewer students, you can’t afford low level math classes and Regents level math. So, everyone gets the top quality… We started getting fewer special education referrals after five years of attention to early grade instruction… Teachers tend to have the same students for two years, so they really get to know them and their families…In a rural area, the school is the community. We get de facto support… BOCES is of critical importance. We are on a vertical learning curve now and we need the training and the support they provide…

There are many problems, to be sure. These rural superintendents worry about the shortage of principals. They struggle to overcome professional isolation. And with virtually no staff between them and the school principal, they really have to do it all. People leave these positions because they simply get tired from being on point every day.

As we redouble our attention to urban schools through the Urban Partnership, we won’t forget that there are more rural school districts than any other kind. And we depend on their continued success.

Louis Levine leaves the State Museum

Lou Levine will step down as Director of the State Museum on June 10 to become the head of collections and exhibits for the new Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. During his eight years Dr. Levine brought new level of visibility to the Museum, as well as many exhibitions, and the institution continued its distinguished program of research.

VESID shows a seven-year improvement trend

15,568 New Yorkers with disabilities got jobs in the 1998 fiscal year because of VESID. The shift toward competitive employment and away from supported employment continues. Included in the numbers is an 88 percent increase in competitive employment placements since 1991. The annualized first year earnings for these new workers totaled $184 million, up nearly $7 million from the prior year.

Smart work

Throughout the State Education Department, teams are quietly thinking through the way we do our work. One team making progress is examining rate setting for preschools. The team includes representatives of public and private providers. Their final recommendations are months away, but their general direction is clear. They plan to move from individual program rates within each preschool to regional rates by program model; from all inclusive rates for instruction and therapies to regional rates for these two elements; and from a cost based system where the rates are recalculated each year to a system of cost of living adjustments with recalculations periodically. The expected results: more timely, less burdensome, and more equitable administration in that the same services will be reimbursed at the same rates. And it will free up highly skilled fiscal and program people to do other vital work. To illustrate the possibilities, consider this. We may be able to convert a process that deals with up to 500,000 paper records annually to a totally paperless system.

Attachment


Effective Policy on School Leadership

Overview

This paper outlines a four-part strategy leading to policy formulation, Regents decision, and State Education Department implementation to improve the condition and practice of education leadership in New York.

The Regents role will be to reaffirm overall direction at the conclusion of each of the first three stages of policy formulation, then at the fourth stage consider options and decide policy. Finally, it will be the Regents role to monitor implementation. A committee of Regents will guide this work on behalf of the Regents, and the full board will be consulted at each major stage.

The Commissioner’s role with the State Education Department will be to ensure expert preparation of policy research, access to expert opinion, forums for public and practitioner input, and well defined policy options for Regents action, and then to implement the policy after the Regents decide. The Regents will select on the Commissioner’s recommendation a distinguished panel of leaders and members of the public to advise on formulation of the policy recommendations.

The Regents and the Commissioner will involve New York educational leaders and others directly through consultation and membership on various panels, and also through continuous writing and public speaking. The project will have assigned project management, expert papers prepared by State Education Department staff and contracted experts and panels of distinguished leaders to serve as advisors.

The entire work will require a year to complete.

Indications of the policy problem

School leaders and those who work with them believe that there is a profound problem affecting school leadership in New York. They point to fewer applications for vacancies as well as other signs of a declining pool of candidates. They also cite the heightened demands, long hours, declining respect, and compensation that no longer matches the responsibility. There are many other elements of the problem and a keystone of the approach recommended here is that we spend time and involve enough people to arrive at a deep understanding of the problem as a basis for the policy actions to follow.

Building the foundation

The Chancellor and the Commissioner have spoken and written extensively about the problems of school leadership to school board members, administrators, and the press. It is widely known that the Regents will take up this policy area as soon as they conclude their current work on teaching. The Commissioner has sought the advice of several groups of school leaders including a panel of rural superintendents, a statewide group of school principals, the advisory council of superintendents, and the district superintendents. The Commissioner will meet with four invitational groups of school leaders in May and June.

What is the leader’s task?

The first step is to reflect on what leaders, and education leaders in particular, must do. There is a rich literature on leadership and many examples of effective leaders in fields that are relevant to the situation of education leaders in a time of rapid change, heightened expectations, and public impatience. We should consider the perspective not only of school leaders, but also leaders in business, the not for profit sector, the arts, politics, science, and the military.

We will convene a panel of outstanding leaders in many fields, and in particular the most distinguished education leaders from New York. The panel will reflect on the task of leadership and offer written guidance to the Regents, the State Education Department and the wider community.

We will commission an expert on leadership to review the literature and write a concise paper on conclusions, insights and research findings on the work of leaders and its context.

The result of this first step will be a statement of what school leaders must do. The Regents will consider, and after appropriate revisions, adopt this statement.

What is the current situation?

The second step is to develop a complete picture of the current situation facing education leaders in New York. Who are the current school leaders in terms of background, preparation, and experience? How do they feel about their work, problems and opportunities? What is the current legal and regulatory framework for school leadership? How are education leaders prepared? What are they paid? What do they do? What is the extent and quality of existing efforts to improve the capacity of school leaders through professional education? What do we know about current and anticipated supply?

Department of Education staff will prepare a statistical summary of data on school leaders, including professional development, compensation, and regulatory requirements.

Department of Education staff will assemble all recent national reports on school leadership and related national data.

We will commission a series of confidential interviews of school leaders in a representative sample of schools. The result will be a paper that summarizes the view from the field.

The Regents will convene regional panels of influential school leaders to gather testimony on the conditions of leadership. These panel discussions will occur after we publish the interview results to ensure the most direct confrontation of the issues.

We will commission an expert paper on the quality of professional development, recruitment, initial preparation, and other issues.

The Regents will adopt a summary report on the current condition of school leadership in New York.

What is the leadership problem?

The third step is to get the problem right. Good policy solutions depend on deep understanding of the real problem. The problem will emerge from comparing what should be to what is. Our aim here is to produce a short, powerful, broadly supported statement of the problem of school leadership. We will not cloud the problem statement with a premature leap to solutions.

We will consider the results of the earlier steps and write a short paper that defines the problem. The Regents will validate that problem statement through hearings and public discussion.

What are the policy solutions?

The fourth step is to develop options and then decide. We seek policy actions that flow from the problem. We want a very short list of policies where effective action can lead to major improvement. Our solutions must reflect the most thoughtful ideas from the New York educational community and the public, and also the very best work on this topic nationally and internationally. We will take care to look beyond education for promising policy solutions.

We will commission expert papers on promising solutions, and arrange for a critical review of those solutions by experts, practitioners, and professional association leaders. The Regents might consider policy involving a list of areas including recruitment, initial preparation, certification, continuing education, and compensation, among many others.

The Commissioner will frame policy recommendations – including options, costs, and recommended implementation strategy -- for the Regents, who will examine all of the materials, conduct a public review of the options, and then decide.


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