September 2001

BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS

The Meeting in Brief:

• Approval of three petitions to exceed Constitutional debt limit
• Confirmation of emergency action on regulation relating to school pesticide neighbor notification
• Approval of charter agreement for COMMUNITY Charter School
• Approval of regulations governing removal of trustees under Education Law, Section 226
• Emergency action on fingerprinting

• Dialogue with parent representatives on student performance
• Standards Implementation Study Year II
• 55-65 implementation schedule
• Strengthening home, school, and community partnerships
• Audit reports on the Greater Amsterdam City School District
• Education Finance Research Consortium
• Historical context for New York State education funding, proposed directions and schedule for Regents State Aid proposal
• Revised statement on closing gaps in student performance
• Review of efforts to increase access to cultural materials
• Process improvement in professional discipline
• Transition services for students with disabilities

The new ninth graders this September will be the first class required to challenge five Regents exams. They were fourth graders when the campaign to raise standards emerged as "all Regents" but it really started before they were in school. The standards will soon be a decade old. Board members, school administrators and teachers know how much has gone into preparing this class. Now we are all watching to see how the youngsters fare, ready to step in when they need help.

Times change, federal education debates continue and uncertainty about state funding clouds the start of this year. But what children need hasn’t changed: a solid education that requires well-prepared teachers, a rich curriculum, and leaders to put it all together for them. There are other requirements to be sure, but those are the critical three. And the reasons for doing this haven’t changed since the founding of the republic. A nation cannot be both ignorant and free, nor can we do the work before us without continuous learning.

So are we providing the critical three – teachers, leaders, and curriculum? It really is a matter of "we" because each of these quests for quality involves state and local effort.

A looming date for teacher recruitment is 2003 when the Regents will permit no more temporary licenses. It’s a challenge in the cities; 16 percent are uncertified in New York City. But there is accomplishment. After a challenging two years, New York City appears to have opened school having met the first stage of the Regents policy by finding certified teachers for the SURR schools. We will review the situation together in October.

We have new supply and demand data at the State Education Department. Professor James Wyckoff’s research involving a decade of that data reveals movement within teaching ranks. For example, 38% of the teachers hired in New York City left within six years – most left the profession entirely. From the research, we can see that unsolved teacher retention problems work against efforts to recruit teachers. But now we know and can act.

Teacher education programs at graduate and undergraduate levels raced to meet higher Regents standards – majors in the subjects, stronger practice teaching, and a requirement that teacher programs get 80 percent of their graduates to pass state teacher exams. The alternate certification program – called Teaching Fellows in New York City – is attracting thousands of candidates with strong backgrounds in their subjects. And the Teachers of Tomorrow program provides incentives.

This fall let’s look at our best estimates of the yield from all these programs and check for mismatches in supply and demand. Where there are gaps, we will pull together and fill them. The children need qualified teachers.

For two years we have examined disappointing middle grades mathematics results and asked if the mathematics curriculum is part of the problem. William Schmidt, who has studied the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) data, says nations that outperformed the US in mathematics have a different approach. They introduce fewer topics, particularly in the early grades, and don’t continually spiral back to cover the same topics each year as we do. In New York we have standards, a core curriculum guide, and tests that are all aligned. But do we have a strong mathematics curriculum in place in all middle schools? Is that curriculum at the heart of teacher professional development so that everyone can share proven approaches to teaching fractions?

Expect serious thinking about curriculum in the context of the Regents "Closing the Gaps" campaign. We must make better curriculum available through technology and other means.

Where will we find the leaders?

They are here. Seven regional meetings demonstrated that there is no shortage of people willing to lead. The challenge is to prepare them once they answer the call. District superintendents and local school superintendents are doing all they can to make that call convincing. And they are also passing on hard-won tradecraft not to be found in any book.

Thousands of hours of discussion produced a statement of essential knowledge and skills for leaders, and that will be the template to rethink leadership education in New York. Former superintendent Kevin McGuire, who leads this effort, has been listening to everyone with an idea on the subject, and we will take his developing proposals to the next series of regional discussions that start this month. Meanwhile, the new Leadership Academies are operating. The Academies are people, not places, and they are impressive – I visited half a dozen already.

This year expect to see a new vision of leadership education, one that resets the balance between theory and practice, and establishes new relationships between higher education and our most distinguished practitioners.

In short, together we will find the teachers, the curriculum, and the leaders those ninth graders need. We are going to have to think our way through the difficulties. But we’ve done that before.

Home, School and Community

Family involvement promotes higher student achievement. The Regents will discuss this in the context of closing the gaps. Parents will meet with the Regents on this topic.

To help prepare for the discussion this month, staff prepared a summary of State Education Department activity in support of parents. It reveals an extraordinary range of activities, usually in concert with parent, community and professional groups, and higher education. We do a lot in partnership with local parent initiatives and we use many funding sources.

Most of the work with parents is intensely local. State efforts can have a wider reach when we encourage and support sound local programs. We promote an attitude of inclusion – the need to invite the family into the heart of the matter – and this is work never fully completed. We seek better and richer communication. All the partners in this have a lot to learn and a lot to teach. Above all, the intent is to close the gaps in student achievement. That goal drives everything. That suggests that the greater part of our resources in this field should involve the low performing schools.

Reading Excellence Act Grant

New York won $81.8 million for "Reading for Results," through the federal Reading Excellence Act. The award will create a program for low-performing students in grades K-3. Among the products will be more teacher training, and new connections among parents, teachers, schools, community-based organizations, libraries, and family literacy and early childhood development programs.

The Department, Governor Pataki, and many reading experts worked together on the winning proposal.

The VESID Committee will be discussing implementation of the transition requirements for students with disabilities. One of the issues the report highlights is that students with disabilities receive information in school about career opportunities later than their nondisabled peers - their parents even talk to them about their future later in their school years than the parents of other students.

55-65 Implementation Timeline

Regents adopted in policy a schedule to end the temporary low pass option on the Regents exams. The Standards Implementation Forum in November listed this topic among the seven policy issues to be reviewed by the Board. The Regents began that review in June, and requested additional data. This month the Regents will continue their review. The new data identifies schools with 20 percent or more of general education students in the 1996 cohort scoring 55-64 on the Regents English examination. Still more data will become available over the next few months.

The Department proposal on this topic will await the full picture on student achievement. Among the questions I ask of those who advocate keeping 55 as the passing score, are these: What is being done now to raise the performance of students in the 55-64 gap? How quickly is performance rising and is there reason to believe that the gap will close before the new ninth grade has to pass all five Regents exams? If the Regents were to allow 55 to remain for a time, what would be done with that time to help the children learn more?

The Regents determination to examine the data before making policy decisions often requires commissioning research and experts to help us interpret what we see. The September meeting includes thought-provoking reports from the Education Finance Research Consortium on ground-level action to raise student achievement.

There were several encouraging findings. For example, the BOCES are cited frequently by local educators as a major resource in implementing the learning standards. Likewise, the study found "no strong or systematic relationship between dropout levels and increased participation on the Regents exams."

However, the research highlights some challenges: "Staff development is predominantly focused on standards implementation (test scoring and curriculum alignment) and much less so on pedagogical improvement." I intend to raise this with leaders in both curriculum and professional development this fall. State policy implementation is important to the Regents, but we need to support a shift in the content of professional development toward instruction. I am also concerned – but not surprised - to read that key partners in the educational system express conflicting views on the ability of all students to learn. We can use these findings as discussion starters statewide and locally.

The Consortium was established in 1999 to improve education policy development through the collaborative work of education researchers and the Department. The Consortium is housed in the Center for Policy Research at the University at Albany. Every two years a policy-relevant research topic is chosen as a topic for a public symposium. Jim Wyckoff, David Monk, and John Sipple from the Consortium will speak to the joint meeting of the Regents EMSC Committee and Regents Subcommittee on State Aid on this year’s symposium on New York’s Teacher Workforce and the condition report on "Adoption and Adaptation: New York School Districts’ Responses to State-Imposed High School Graduation Requirements."

Cultural resources stimulate and enhance learning at every stage and condition of life. The collections of libraries, museums and archives hold the very stuff of learning. Ensuring that everyone who can benefit from these resources has easy access to them is a fundamental responsibility of the Regents and the Department.

Regents used several measures of access to cultural materials to evaluate my performance last year. Regents legislative and budgetary initiatives for OCE for two years have focused on better and more convenient use of cultural materials and on broadening the scope of resources themselves to be more inclusive. The initiatives have drawn interest and some measure of support, and we will persevere. This month the Regents will review the work ongoing in our Office of Cultural Education to achieve this goal even in advance of full funding for the Regents initiatives.

When I visited my local library last week to vote for the library budget, I was delighted to find new information packets on the Regents 21^st Century Library initiative. Then I saw another display of the same materials on the way out the door. And then I saw a third set when I doubled back to the circulation desk. This is serious advocacy.

With the leadership of the Board of Regents, libraries all across New York State now have informational materials on New Century Libraries to share with their users. Working in partnership with the New York Library Association (NYLA), the State Library produced attractive and eye-catching materials to inform public library users throughout New York about the New Century Library proposal.

The materials include brochures and bookmarks that provide information on how the initiative addresses the needs of New Yorkers for improved library services. A counter top display poster and standard poster are also included.

The materials were included in an advocacy tool kit distributed by NYLA to more than 1,000 public libraries and neighborhood branches across the State. NYLA is working with the directors of each public library system, reference and research library resources system, and school library system to help local libraries promote and explain the importance of New Century Libraries to trustees, friends of the library, the general public, and the media. Tool kit materials are accessible on a newly created New Century Libraries web site at www.ncl.nysed.gov

Roosevelt opened school last week under its third contingency budget in five years. Superintendent Horace Williams recommended budget reductions to meet the contingency levels but the Roosevelt Board deferred action on those recommendations.

State Education Department staff has planned for several possible outcomes, including state takeover, and action under the SURR regulations in the absence of takeover. We continue to adjust these plans to be ready when the Legislature and Governor decide the matter. Meanwhile, I have continued to inform legislators and the Executive of the facts and the need for additional funding for Roosevelt at this critical juncture.

For the ESEA reauthorization, the big unanswered questions are about funding, accountability, and testing. The Senate’s figures are $9 billion above those of the House, and $13.5 billion above the President’s. The issue with accountability is that both House and Senate versions of ESEA legislation would identify vast numbers of schools as in need of improvement because of the methods proposed for calculating "adequate yearly progress." And arguments continue on how much flexibility to give states and communities on new federal test requirements. We have argued that states that have been recognized for implementing their own comprehensive testing and accountability systems ought to have significant flexibility.

Debate on ESEA is expected to continue into mid-October, and the funding issue will last even longer. We continue to monitor the situation and promote our Federal agenda.

The Regents Committee on Quality will reflect on the discussions at the annual policy retreat in July. One item from the Retreat called upon me to support the Regents strategic focus by suggesting three or four major topics. What follows is an outline that I will discuss with the Committee.

The mission in our strategic plan is to raise the knowledge, skill, and opportunity for all citizens of New York. In many ways we have set standards to bring that mission to life. There are obvious gaps 
between the standard and the current situation. For example, too many students still do not meet the standards in the schools. College completion rates don’t exceed national averages. Too many citizens live in communities without public libraries. Because of gaps in their skills, many lack the jobs they need to support themselves and their families. Asserting the vision of what could be, and then marshalling resources and support to close the gaps is our focus. Unlike every other state, New York has the combined resources of the University of the State of New York to pursue that work. Our strategic focus, therefore, should be to identify and try to close critical gaps in student achievement, access to job skills, and access to cultural resources. I will ask the Committee to help me develop these ideas.

The Regents Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Future of Nursing

The Regents Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Future of Nursing, which is chaired by Regent Diane McGivern, includes 25 leaders from education, health care, and government.

On September 7 the Task Force unveiled their recommendations:

• Retention: Support initiatives to retain current nursing workforce, including best practice principles such as the magnet hospital model.
• Recruitment: Recruit additional numbers of men, minorities, non-practicing nurses, and recent high school graduates to expand the nursing workforce.
• Education: Provide more academic and financial support to nursing students and create career ladders for all nurses.
• Technology: Improve workplace conditions through the use of technology to eliminate duplicative paper work and improve access to and communication of patient information.
• Clarify Existing Rules and Regulations: Issue guidelines to clarify the legal scope of practice of nursing and widely publicize clarification of existing Regents regulations on patient abandonment.
• Data Collection: Develop a reliable central source of data on the future need for nurses in the workforce for all decision-makers to use.

The Task Force recommendations will be the basis for a larger discussion and the formation of a broad action network at a Nursing Forum in New York City on October 29, 2001. The 300 Forum invitees, representing nursing, education, health care and government, will convene to identify their roles in supporting and contributing to implementing the Task Force recommendations. The State Education Department will report baseline information reflective of the Task Force’s data collection recommendations later in 2002.

A Score Card on Legislative Priorities

A monthly publication of the State Education Department

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