May 2001

BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS

The Regents will meet in Rochester. The purpose of this regional meeting is to listen to the public and local educators. On the first day we will visit three programs at the Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES, followed by a full board meeting, which includes a presentation by Superintendent Clifford Janey of the Rochester City School District on attendance and parental involvement in that district. On the following day Regents will visit schools in the area and tour the Strong Museum.

Actions:

• Approval of two charter school applications resubmitted by the SUNY Board of Trustees

• Monthly report on the Roosevelt Union Free School District on activities by the District Review Panel and SED staff.
  

Slogans Are Not Thoughts About Policy

"Remarks are not literature," said Gertrude Stein to Ernest Hemingway. Neither are slogans substitutes for thinking about public policy. We are past the mid-point in our campaign to raise student achievement to a level demanded by the public and common sense, and we can all raise the tone of public discourse about education. Slogans are not thoughts. They can actually get in the way of thinking.

Consider some of the slogans currently used to criticize higher standards. "One size fits all" is a favorite. What does it mean? People who say this are trying to claim that the Regents standards force a single approach to teaching and learning. Sometimes they use this against the Regents exams. This is a distortion of the facts. The exams measure student progress against the standards. They do not dictate the approach to teaching. The Board of Regents provided in policy for alternatives to the Regents exams. There is an Alternative Assessment Panel that has recommended 14 alternative exams and I have approved them, including the International Baccalaureate, SAT-II, and the Cambridge Exams in particular subjects.

"Inflexibility" is another slogan that is used. Regents have certainly been resolute. But have they been inflexible? People asked for more time to get students ready, so the Board offered a temporary passing score of 55 at local option. People wanted flexibility in curriculum to allow a career and technical path to the diploma. So the Regents and the Department created the Career and Technical path with the help of thousands. Schools lacked the time to get ready for a fifth grade social studies test? The Regents put it off a year. The data showed that children with disabilities were improving fast but still needed time? The Regents extended the safety net for four more years. The new 8^th grade exams were likely to add too much pressure to the system? We said go ahead with the tests but don’t report results in the first year except to parents, students and teachers. People asked for additional opportunities for students to pass the Regents exams, so we created Component Retesting. This allows instruction to be focused on areas where students are deficient in the standards and gives these students another opportunity to meet the standards. A group of school leaders told me the other week that we don’t listen to them. We do listen to them. But we also listen to others as well. Listening to a person doesn’t always mean doing all that is asked. Every leader, and especially every superintendent and board member, knows what it’s like to listen to many voices and then try to build a path among competing views.

"Teaching to the test" is another slogan. No one needs to teach to the test – only to the learning standards. Teaching to the test is a bad strategy mainly because it doesn’t work and isn’t good for the students. One teacher noticed a question about fables in the 2000 4^th grade English Language Arts assessment, so he had his students read a lot of fables rather than various kinds of literature during the year. He was outraged to find no fables in the following year’s exam. A far more appropriate strategy is to expect the students to read a lot and write a lot. Then they will be ready for anything. This involves aligning one’s teaching and curriculum to the standards.

Let’s stop using the slogans and let’s spend more time really listening to one another. We have come a long way and still have far to go. The children are getting a better education now and we can show it. But let’s think about the children not yet reaching the standards and what we can all do to help them. Let’s think about the problems with middle grades achievement. Many youngsters are having real problems with mathematics in the middle grades. Those problems won’t go away if we just keep them home on testing days. Let’s think about the children who can meet enough of the standards to achieve a 55 on the Regents exam but not 65 or the 85 that signifies mastery. These are hard problems and we need to help one another solve them.

Most of all, let’s think about why we started this. It’s not about the exams. It’s about ensuring that all New York children gain the knowledge and skill needed for citizenship, work, and life in a complex world. In the recent past, many in the public said that too many weren’t learning enough. Because of the efforts of thousands of people across New York, more children are learning. If we stay focused, all will. 

The Regents are relentless in their concentration on this issue of the gaps in student achievement. The most recent forum in Buffalo took the issue to a new plane. One thing that made it different was the panel of parents and students in the gap. The panel began the meeting and centered the discussion to follow. In other words, this whole effort is about getting better results for children and families. If it works for them, then it works. Period.

Another distinctive feature of the Buffalo gap-closing session was the focus on partnerships with a commitment to better outcomes. The Mayor, County Executive, county human services commissioners, many professors from the University of Buffalo and Buffalo State, business people, foundation leaders all joined the Regents, Superintendent of Schools, and members of the School Board. That gathering of leadership was impressive.

Still another unique feature was the powerful report from the Council of Great City Schools. The report is highly critical of the schools and how they are governed. The difference is that the school system asked for this report, and having seen it, embraced the findings and recommendations and is hard at work doing something about it.

Regents discussed the future of the University of the State of New York during the March and April Regents meeting. The March discussion was about the Regents stewardship of the University, the policy and systems questions that flow from that. In April we took up one of those questions: How does the University develop leadership within?

This month we held the first of three preliminary discussions with representatives of the University with Regents in attendance. These were among the suggestions from the first discussion: There are strategic relationships among parts of the University that need developing. The University supports a lot of cross-boundary collaboration but doesn’t tell people about this work. The really important problems require 

just this kind of collaborative work. We have tended to concentrate on the parts of the University when it may be the whole system and the relationships among the parts that are more significant now. The University has carried the debate about the need for high standards. Now what? In response, one participant drew us back to words of the mission statement in our strategic plan: to raise the knowledge, skill, and opportunity for every New Yorker.

By the time the Regents meet, we will have concluded the first three in a series of regional meetings with aspiring school leaders. I can assure you that there will be no leadership crisis in New York schools. The reason is the commitment of currently serving leaders who in large numbers have taken on the responsibility to tap and develop those who will come after them. They are bringing with them to these sessions many aspiring principals and superintendents.

The District Superintendents have dedicated themselves to organizing this campaign. Each regional meeting begins with a breakfast session for community leaders. The purpose is to inform business, higher education, community and political leaders of what they can do to create an environment that attracts and supports school leadership. Later in the day we visit the new Leadership Academies, existing programs run by local superintendents to "grow their own" leaders, and then we talk to the media about leadership as an indispensable element in closing the student achievement gap. Finally, the superintendents and I meet large numbers of aspiring leaders that they have tapped. We are giving them a positive message about school leadership as a career.

Now that we have found so many men and women willing to answer the call to leadership, it is up to all of us to ensure that they are made ready and given the support they need to thrive as leaders.

Schools are required under Section 100.4(d) of the Commissioner’s Regulations to administer State assessments in grades 4 and 8. Students who are absent on the day of a State assessment must be given that assessment during make-up periods when they are in attendance. The grade 8 English language arts test was administered on May 8-9. The make-up days were May 10-11. For the grade 8 mathematics test, the administration will be May 15-16 and the make-up days will be May 17, 18 and 21.

The grade 8 social studies and science tests will be administered June 6-21. Schools will determine the dates of administration during that time period. Students absent during the day of administration must be given the test on other days before the end of the June 6-21 time period. The grade 4 mathematics test will be given on May 15-16 and the make-up days will be May 16, 17 and 18.

Under State law, school administrators and teachers must administer State tests to all students. Students who are absent during the administration and make-up period will be recorded on the school report card as not participating in the State assessment program. It is the responsibility of District Superintendents to identify and investigate instances in which excessive percentages of students fail to participate in the State assessment program.

At the April meeting we discussed the proposed amendments to alternative certification. Two topics received particular attention – the definition of a major and provisions for mentoring. Regents questions about these topics require additional discussion and that is scheduled for the May meeting.

The Regents will visit the Strong Museum, one of the nation’s leading "hands-on" history museums. The 500,000 objects of Americana include toys, games, books, home furnishings, miniatures, advertising materials and the world’s largest collection of dolls. The Strong Museum is laid out around an atrium that contains an operating carousel, a soda shoppe and diner. Some current exhibits:

• Toys from Mars – an exhibit based on space toys from the 1930’s to today.
• The Crayola FACTORY presents Journey to the Red Planet – Visitors use their imagination to create an imagined colony on Mars.
• Super Kids Market – A learning environment in which children run a miniature supermarket, climb a food pyramid, and produce commercials at a TV station while learning about nutrition.

The Strong draws 325,000 visitors annually and has announced expansion plans that will cement their position as the largest museum in western New York. The president and CEO of the Strong, Rollie Adams, is a national leader in the museum field.

Federal Update

The Senate and House passed the federal fiscal year 2002 budget resolution, which sets broad spending guidelines that are seldom followed. The final agreement would cut education funding below the President's proposal, which means that not even his new initiatives would be funded at requested levels. There is widespread belief that the appropriations committees will increase education funding as they proceed with setting allocation levels for individual programs. We continue to participate in events in Washington to ensure this happens.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has completed its work on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and sent the result for floor action possibly as early as next week. The full Senate is considering its version of the legislation, and debate there likely will extend into next week as well. There are numerous details that we are monitoring closely and working to craft in our favor.

This week schools across the State implemented component retesting in English and mathematics. Component retesting is available to any senior student who has failed a Regents examination twice and has scored at least 48 on an examination. Schools can analyze the results of a student’s tests and determine specific areas of the standards where they need additional instruction.

In English, there are two component tests depending on areas of the standards for which students are deficient. The component tests are administered over five consecutive days – one class period per day. On day one and day two of one of the English component tests, students write extended essays based on listening and/or reading passages. On the other three days, students answer multiple choice questions and write shorter essays. For the other English component test, this schedule is reversed. The score on each component test is an accumulation of the five days of testing.

For mathematics, there are four possible components – each component is given on two consecutive days – one class period each day. Students answer both multiple choice and solve multi-step problems.

The Department took specific steps to ensure that the total component tests are as rigorous as a section of the full Regents examination. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) was hired to ensure that the items on component tests were judged by New York State teachers to be scored at the appropriate level of difficulty and field tests were conducted to guarantee that the component retest questions were as difficult as a Regents examination. Some press accounts inaccurately characterized these component retests as "dumbing down" the Regents examinations. Our data do not support this conclusion. We need to make sure that colleagues in the field and the media understand that component testing gives students who are close to meeting Regents standards yet another opportunity to meet those standards.

A monthly publication of the State Education Department

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