October  2001

BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS

The Meeting in Brief:

Much of the Meeting in Brief section remains the same as the September Report to the Regents. Please look again at that report in preparation for the October meeting. The focus for this report will be on the events after September 11, the gap in student achievement, and Roosevelt.

September 11

So much has changed -- even now we don’t grasp how much. And yet so much is still the same. What our children need has not changed – it’s just that thousands of them suddenly need so much more -- and the needs of all are more obvious. All the daily problems of running educational institutions are still there, but more difficult, more complex.

The children still need an excellent education. The library still needs to be there for all the people. Many of our neighbors with disabilities still need help finding work. Higher education still aspires to be excellent and accessible. And the Office of the Professions must still protect the public from harm. And yet all of these groups are also needed to help in the current emergency.

There are almost no more words for what happened. Yet the stories have to come out. And that is a good thing, too. It’s part of healing.

The children, their families and everyone else needed stability on the first day and the days that came after. They needed calm adults around them. Local schools, colleges, libraries, VESID, and museums provided what they needed. They did it by staying open.

America froze for a week; the financial markets closed; regular programming on television was suspended. But local educators got up the next day and went to work to care for students, staff, and community.

I saw my neighbors waiting for the school bus with kindergarten children. The children had a good place to go. Their parents had a safe place to send them. School was open. It was a living picture of freedom’s work.

We have pondered the nature of leadership. New York’s educators displayed leadership abundantly – and they did it when they were off the map, far beyond all the guidelines for what to do next.

New York City schools were compelled by this attack to open twice this year – once in early September and again on September 13. And both times they were splendid. The City school system distinguished itself in countless actions by individual teachers, administrators, and other school personnel who took care of children during that terrifying morning.

Superintendents on Long Island, and in Rockland, Orange, Westchester, and other places confronted the enormous losses in their communities with great compassion. More than 70 families in one district lost someone, more than 40 in another. The schools became community centers for so many in mourning.

District Superintendents got their BOCES into action within minutes to support schools. My department colleagues got three advisory messages out that first day and helped schools remain open. Chancellor Goldstein and his colleagues kept the City University of New York open throughout the days of crisis. College and university presidents of all sectors offered material help in the City. Higher education leaders elsewhere were quick to denounce bias incidents. The museum community reopened quickly.

In moments of crisis people touch bedrock – family, faith, love of country, work. Educational and cultural institutions everywhere showed themselves to be part of the bedrock. The peace in the classrooms, libraries, and museums defied those who would make us fearful.

The Regents already have reports on State Education Department actions in support of New York City, I will add only this summary.

The fundamental idea is that we worked always in partnership with state and local agencies, sending staff to the State Emergency Management Office, and in some cases to the Disaster Field Office in New York City. We sent experts to New York City to help with building inspection and finance issues, to cite two examples. We helped public and nonpublic schools in affected counties outside New York City to identify what they needed.

On September 11 we began a continuous flow of information to educational and cultural institutions to support their crisis management.

We contacted the Office of Mental Health and experts around the nation to compile sources of counselors for the City.

We supported the New York Board of Education with federal agencies as they prepared emergency aid proposals, and we put higher education institutions in touch with these same federal leaders. We also developed aid proposals for VESID programs and received an additional $4.2 million for vocational rehabilitation services in the downstate area.

We stepped in to resolve potential regulatory problems involving length of classes, reporting dates, and school year in schools and higher education institutions.

We responded to more than 600 licensed professionals from around the state and the nation, who were interested in providing emergency services to injured victims of the attack. We also provided guidelines, which enabled pharmacies to issue thousands of emergency prescriptions for people, whose pharmacy was either destroyed, inaccessible or whose network was disrupted.

The State Education Department will continue to work as long as necessary on all of these activities in conjunction with the Board of Education and other New York City-based institutions.

We visited the people who work with us, especially in the state offices in New York City. The first school I visited was a large Muslim school in New York City. Many children there were afraid to be outside, upset by hateful words from people who released their anger by trying to create scapegoats. The President, the Governor and the Mayor set the right tone by rebuking such shameful behavior.

After the first few days of the crisis, Governor Pataki and Mayor Guilliani urged New York citizens to return to our work and defeat the terrorists with our spirit. As we go about our work, and consider the examples of leadership around us, we might also consider the words of Michael Fullan, in Leading in a Culture of Change.

"the chief role of leadership is to mobilize the collective capacity to challenge difficult circumstances. Our only hope is that many individuals working in concert can become as complex as the society they live in."

That is our hope, too, and we will work hard to achieve it.

The Regents policy framework for closing the gaps in student achievement first emerged in discussions with leaders of the Big Five school districts. We talked with them again in late September about their progress and what they thought we could do to help.

All five have comprehensive strategies to raise student achievement. All have been inventive, and they have shared solutions. The five are forthright about low performance -- most of the students in the gap are their students. They also have the same worry about their budgets. Given the "bare bones" budget increase of $382 million, the Big 5 superintendents say they face budget deficits.

The full financial picture is unknowable today, but consider this: New York lost the revenues from financial markets that were closed for a week. New York City businesses experienced huge losses and tax revenues will be down. Revenues had been disappointing for two quarters prior to September 11. Hotels and airline revenues are down. There will be insurance and significant federal aid to rebuild but there will be unavoidable lags in the flow of these resources.

For the Big Five districts, the chief worry is that the revenue picture may compromise their reform strategies. Those strategies sound impressive. Here are some examples.

Syracuse sets numerical performance benchmarks by school. There are new data quarterly and follow-through. They look for "root causes" of low achievement, and as a consequence put reading specialists in each elementary school. Syracuse has a grade-by-grade curriculum aligned to the standards. Principals and teachers have studied research-based strategies and they are expected to apply them.

Rochester studied when and why teachers leave the district, then with the teachers union created a solution that slowed the losses. They found a way to make staff departures predictable. Then with a college they started an alternative path for teacher education. They have also hired most of the first class of new leaders specifically prepared for Rochester schools.

New York City, Yonkers, and Buffalo have equally powerful ideas in motion. Buffalo, for example, has new capacity to demonstrate model lessons for teachers through technology.

They suggested several ways that we could help. They need expanded alternate certification programs for teachers. They need professional development directed to the known academic problems. They want teacher education programs to be accountable for teacher performance. They want a strategic initiative to produce more mathematics majors in higher education. And they need financial resources, or at least more flexibility in the funding they have. Failing that, at least closure on the current budget uncertainty would help them to go forward. The first part of the State Aid proposal that is before the Regents this month makes clear the relationship between funding and closing the gap.

Roosevelt began the school year without the resources necessary to meet state standards or their own goals. We have continued to discuss both the urgent problems and the options with the Legislature, but there is no resolution yet. The Senate and the Assembly have given a lot of thought to the matter but the two bodies support very different solutions.

Meanwhile, here is Roosevelt’s situation: The Roosevelt Board proposed budget of $41.9 million was defeated, as was a second proposal of $40.9 million. (The State Education Department analysis concluded that even the original $41.9 proposal was not sufficient.) The Board adopted a contingency budget of $39.6 million, but has not yet reduced spending to that level.

Today the state oversight law remains in effect because the Legislature extended it until October 31. If the Legislature does not provide the funding Roosevelt needs – and our estimate is $6 million – and if there is no decision on the options we have proposed or some other option, by November we will have only the powers under the SURR regulations to deal with the problem. State takeover, and all other options, require the funds for Roosevelt in order to succeed. We will discuss this matter at the Regents meeting.

Our Washington, DC staff and their close associates were not harmed in the Pentagon attack. However, the presence of troops and military equipment in the streets is disconcerting and underscores the gravity of the situation.

The Congress is continuing its work. Staff met to negotiate differences between Senate and House elementary and secondary reauthorization bills over the August recess but a scheduled meeting of the conference committee to validate their work was cancelled. Subsequently, a meeting was held, and the committee approved several more sections of the law. While the most controversial elements are still pending action, the Administration and congressional leaders have stated that they have every intention of completing the work.

Appropriations Committee members and others also have been working to set funding amounts for federal fiscal year 2002, which began October 1. The Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep the government running after the start of the new fiscal year.

Negotiators seem to be coalescing around an increase for education of at least 13 percent over 2001. While the White House seems accepting of the increase, there is debate about how to pay for it, so anything can happen. For example, there is pressure for an across-the-board spending cut for 2002 to keep from tapping into the Social Security surplus. There also could be a large, omnibus-funding bill that incorporates this year's funding levels plus inflation for 2002. However, people seem more inclined now to move forward with the regular appropriations.

A monthly publication of the State Education Department

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