BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS
November 1999
BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER
RICHARD P. MILLS
The meeting in November will include discussion of my recommendation to the Board concerning the CUNY Master Plan amendment. The Regents will vote on this matter at the November 22 meeting in New York City.
The Regents Priority Legislative Program for the year 2000 is before the Board this month for approval. The Regents also will review and comment on the full text of the Regents Federal Brochure. The final version will be before the Regents in December.
We will report the statewide results on the 4th grade mathematics and 8th grade mathematics and English tests.
Regents will vote on amendments to regulations to enable use of the new tests in the identification of SURR schools that were adopted as an emergency measure in October. The Board will also be asked to approve the appointment of a fifth member to the Roosevelt District Review Panel.
The Regents will review a draft of the Regents 2000-2001 State Aid proposal. With the Board’s concurrence, staff will seek public comment on the draft proposal and provide a summary of the public comment and a revised proposal for approval in December.
The Regents will also discuss plans for the next Regents Conference on the Professions. This discussion will include an update on the actions the Regents have taken to date on the important policy recommendations received from the field at the last Regents Conference and future policy directions.
The Regents Annual Archives Awards Luncheon will be on Thursday, November 4. We will honor outstanding accomplishments in archives and records management across the State. This year we have a broad range of award recipients that include middle school students, local governments and the State Legislature.
The Regents will meet with the New York State United Teachers Executive Committee. Topics include standards, closing the performance gap, charter schools and higher education including remediation for college students.
The Regents have my recommendation for their action on the master plan amendment proposed by City University of New York. I will discuss this recommendation at the Higher and Professional Education Committee and before the full Board.
Recommendation: I recommend that the Regents adopt the recommendation at their special meeting on this item on November 22.
Regents had a preliminary look at a recommended legislative program in October. The proposals have been refined and are now before the Board for approval. These priorities emerged from Committee discussions, meetings with constituent groups and extensions of Regents policies developed through task forces and advisory groups, such as the Task Force on Leadership, Teaching Task Force, Performance Gap Task Force and the Commission on Libraries.
There are eight proposals:
Recommendation: I recommend that the Board approve the Priority Legislative Program for the year 2000.
The results of the grades 4 and 8 mathematics tests and the grade 8 English language arts test will become public at the Regents meeting on November 5. These latest results, when combined with the English Regents exam results and the grade 4 English scores announced earlier, give us the first complete look at student performance against the standards across grade levels.
As you will see, the picture is complex. The familiar gaps among districts are still there, still demanding urgent action. We will again see the mixed picture of hope and great need for improvement. And as before, in our discussions we will first seek to understand what the results tell us about student performance, and then immediately turn to actions to boost performance in the current year.
Educating all students to the standards and closing the gaps in performance are the great challenges before us. State Aid is potentially one of the most powerful levers available to meet those challenges but it will require significant change to reach the potential. In December, the Regents will decide their position on State Aid. The Subcommittee on State Aid and the State Education Department prepared a recommendation for discussion this month. It is a very strong one.
The proposal is built on data about student achievement, the gaps in achievement, and related gaps in capacity. The proposal connects powerful themes in Regents policy: driving more aid to high need school districts, providing extra help to students who need it to meet the standards, and attracting and retaining qualified teachers.
Recommendation: The State Aid proposal is before the Regents for discussion this month and I will recommend that the Regents adopt it in December.
Task Force members will meet with members of the Blue Ribbon Panel to discuss its preliminary recommendations on how to maintain and to attract effective leaders. Panel members will comment on the draft problem statement and recommendations from their last discussion on September 23.
Here are some additional thoughts that occur to me after having listened to their discussions. As in every significant issue before the Board, there is work to be done at both State and local levels. The need for State level policy work is obvious. For example, State certification requirements are based on the accumulation of hours of credit, not the development of knowledge and skill essential to lead in schools. We have not defined that body of knowledge and skill in policy. We have not made explicit a conceptual framework of what we mean by school leadership. There is no system of exams, panel reviews, or public performance to guarantee that candidates for certification in leadership have mastered that material.
We do not distinguish between institutions that are spectacularly successful in preparing leaders and those who may continue to produce those who are unready for the challenges right before them.
There is no statewide attention to recruitment. New York doesn’t even have a recruitment strategy for school leaders, or a recruitment package we could use to attract the people we need. Huge numbers of potential leaders are right there in the schools but we do not invite them to step up to the challenge. We have a lot to do. The difference is that now we know what it is, and the need is so urgent now that we have no choice but to do it.
Department staff received last week the data we need to identify schools farthest from the standards. We will inform districts of the schools farthest from State standards when the analysis of data is complete. I expect to make decisions about schools during November and to provide you with a report on actions consistent with Regents policy at the meeting in December.
Last week Chancellor Rudy Crew of New York City, Superintendents Stephen Jones of Syracuse, Clifford Janey of Rochester, James Harris of Buffalo, and Andre Hornsby of Yonkers and many of their colleagues met in Albany to help shape our urban strategy. We started with the same data that the Regents have seen: Kati Haycock’s data about the national gaps in student achievement followed by New York data from Deputy Commissioner Jim Kadamus. There are six parts to the framework built that day: 1) the standards drive everything, 2) help to meet the standards for students who need it, 3) prepare and recruit able teachers, 4) prepare and recruit able leaders, 5) accountability, and 6) State Aid consistent with those proposals.
We committed to a joint effort to develop these ideas further and to advocate for and implement them. I was delighted to see that at least two participants found occasion to talk about these ideas in the days immediately following our meeting.
During the last several weeks, I have visited each of the Big Five school districts repeatedly. For the most part, these visits were low-key affairs designed to observe teaching and school leadership in pairs of high and low performing schools. The high performers are often very distinguished indeed. The low performers make the case for radical change more eloquently than any words could. It is so easy to find high performers in the cities that the debate is over as far as I am concerned: A district that can do it in one school can do it everywhere. State leaders can back local leaders to do just that.
Now the second round of visits begins, and this time it won’t be so quiet. In Syracuse (November 15), Buffalo (November 16), Rochester (November 17), Yonkers (December 2) and New York City (December 8, 9, and February 2, 9, and 16) Regents, local education leaders, and I will talk to community groups, school principals, businesses, and the wider public about what we need to do together to get all students to the standards.
In September, the State Education Department held eight public meetings on the proposed amendments to align our regulations with federal regulations to implement the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In November, the Board will discuss the substantive comments received through the public meetings and the proposed amendments as revised in response to public comment.
At the November meeting, the Board will examine the draft master plan and consider next steps.
Since 1836 the State Museum has dedicated itself to the discovery of new knowledge about New York’s natural and cultural history. The long-term exhibits of the State Museum reflect a plan conceived more than 30 years ago and no longer fulfill the expectations of visitors. The Museum contracted with a design firm to develop a master plan to guide the development of new exhibition galleries.
The new exhibit master plan will reassert the Museum’s identity as a premier educational environment by incorporating technology to allow virtual visits throughout the state, the nation and the world of today, yesterday and tomorrow. The Museum will be an education platform for programming directly to classrooms and provide connections to the community.
Much work and investment stand between plan and reality. The starting point will be the Regents decision on the plan.
The three key ideas that have emerged from the Library Services Commission are: New York On Line Virtual Electronic Library/Statewide e-Library Card; information literacy for school children and incentives for public libraries to adopt service boundaries coterminous with school district boundaries.
Other ideas under development include: promoting quality library service through aid incentives to libraries to help them achieve the Commission's goals; promoting fairness by using a wealth-based formula for allocating future aid; proposing funds for library construction, expansion and renovation to ensure that New York's libraries are accessible to all library users and can accommodate advances in information technology; enhancing the effectiveness of library systems and strengthening systems' ability to support implementation of other commission recommendations; strengthening the role of the New York State Library to ensure the delivery of 21st century resources and programs in libraries throughout the State; and, establishing a statewide advocacy program to speak out for libraries and channel more effectively the widespread community regard for libraries.
The Library Commission will distribute a draft report in early 2000 and sponsor a series of regional hearings to discuss the draft recommendations.
Charter School Applications
We have received five charter school applications to date. The applications will be before the Board (EMSC Committee) for action in December. In addition, we have provided our best estimate on when we will receive proposed charters from the SUNY Trustees and when we might submit those to the Board for action. We also anticipate some applications which convert existing public schools into charter schools.
A monthly publication of the State Education Department
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