The policy review of early
childhood education that the Board begins this month will have consequences as
far reaching as the decision a decade ago to implement high academic
standards. When New York can
guarantee a good start for every child, most of the challenges we face today in
closing the achievement gap will disappear. Between today and the day we can
honestly make that guarantee stands hard work and difficult choices.
The Regents decided to make this
policy review one of their priorities.
This month, the Board will discuss a paper that proposes a framework for
that policy. The 24-month calendar calls for a decision in December. The
foundations for this work include hearings in 2004 and more discussions with
stakeholders. The hearings extended beyond the early education community to
include many members of the University of the State of New York (USNY). This
inclusive approach was actually the first implementation decision, because a
strong early education system is the foundation for USNY. Including everyone at
the beginning helps ensure not only good policy, but also good rollout once the
Regents decide.
Among the proposed policy
directions are these:
·
Statewide focus on children from birth to three
·
Pre-K an entitlement
·
Compulsory school age at 5
·
Stronger teacher preparation and professional
development
·
Assessment of outcomes
·
Increased opportunities for integration of students with
disabilities into preschool programs
The paper explains why the
Board must address this priority now.
For example, 1.2 million New York children under the age of 6 are in care
outside the home. Eighty percent of four-year-olds are in some kind of early
care prior to kindergarten. What
are these children learning?
One of many thought-provoking
suggestions is this: “Leverage the resources of USNY.” We are ready to do that. The Board’s
USNY Summit in November must have a strong early childhood element. Our intent,
after all, is to eliminate the gap in student achievement. Where better to start
than at the beginning?
The High School Graduation
Standard
Graduation
from high school must signify that a person is now ready for work, higher
education, and citizenship. Regents policy requires students to complete a
rigorous academic program that includes 4 years of English and history, and 3
years of science and mathematics, among other subjects. In passing these courses, students must
earn at least 22 credits, which are determined locally. In addition, students
must pass five Regents exams. The question is, at what minimum passing score?
Sixty-five is a score that signifies proficiency in the judgment of expert
teachers who set the cut scores on each exam. The Regents intent is to move to
proficiency as the minimum requirement as rapidly as possible. As a transition
measure, the Regents permitted local school boards to allow 55. That option was
to have ended a year ago.
Two years
ago, the Regents considered the data as they promised they would, and decided to
pause in the schedule to implement 65 as the minimum Regents score for
graduation. At that time, too many students were still scoring between 55 and
65. Current policy requires students who enter the 9th grade in
September 2005 to pass five Regents exams at 65, and also pass their course work
to achieve 22 credits. The Board
will examine that policy decision this spring, and either confirm or modify it
in June. The outside limit for the decision is July because students must know
the expectations for graduation when they return in September.
The school
report card data reveal that for the class entering ninth grade five years
earlier in 2000, 92 percent of those who took all five exams passed at 55 or
better, and 77 percent passed at 65 or above. When we look at the different categories
of districts, we find that low need, average need, and rural school districts
are close to the 65-minimum already, while the cities have farther to go. The data also show that 8th
grade classes after 2000 had increasingly fewer students at level 1, especially
in the cities. They were better
prepared for high school. The question for the Regents is how rapidly the cities
can raise student achievement.
Later in
March, State Education Department leaders will convene leaders from the 136 high
schools in 12 districts that have the majority of the students taking three or
fewer Regents exams and reporting graduation rates below seventy percent. The
purpose is to improve school completion rates as quickly as possible.
High School
Mathematics
The Mathematics
Standards Committee stated their core message in bold
type:
“The study of mathematics is
a study of ideas and concepts. Yes, students need to know the procedures, but
the knowledge of those procedures without conceptual understanding is surface
knowledge that is virtually meaningless.”
The committee recommends to
the Regents that the high school program consist of three rigorous mathematics
courses: Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2 and Trigonometry. The Committee
insists that these courses must teach both the content and the processes of
mathematics. Their recommendation is not, as the committee says, a return to an
earlier approach that for some students amounted to memorization of one way to
solve a problem, but no real understanding of the principles behind the method.
The
committee has defined performance indicators for both mathematics content and
process for each grade. They propose an implementation schedule that includes
PreK-8 standards in 2005-06, with one of the three high school courses
introduced in each of the following years. This will allow careful preparation
of course materials at state and local levels, and development of new Regents
exams to match.
The
committee also has an interesting proposal that exploits the advantage of USNY
and the Regents leadership in higher education as well as elementary and
secondary education. The committee suggests consideration of a “mathematics
sequence” or perhaps a “mathematics-science sequence” that connects high school
and college work in a way that challenges more students to take more mathematics
in college. This is one of several ideas that will require further discussion
with the field and the Regents.
However, we recommend approval of two committee recommendations in
March.
We
recommend that the Regents adopt the committee’s first two
recommendations:
1. That high school mathematics
programs include three one-year courses of instruction, with the course titles
to be “Algebra,” “Geometry,” and “Algebra 2 and
Trigonometry.”
2. That the performance
indicators for Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2 and Trigonometry courses be
adopted, along with the alignment modifications to pre-kindergarten through
grade 8.
We recommend that the Regents
consider the committee's other four recommendations relating to graduation
requirements at a later date. These
recommendations need more field input and conversation.
School Report Card
Data
The annual
School Report Card allows us to check progress in relation to the standards and
also note what remains to be done.
This year’s report shows more students graduating, more passing Regents
exams, and fewer repeating 9th grade. But here are some other facts that stand
out.
Since 1996,
when the Regents adopted the standards, many more students passed the Regents
English exam at 65. That number was 91,000 in 1996. Last year, it was 152,000.
There is a similar pattern for each Regent exam. Over recent years, New York
schools have educated a great many people to a level of proficiency. That is a
great achievement.
The Report
Card also shows that many students are not taking Regents exams. They were not
prepared for high school, as is evident in the numbers scoring at level 1 in the
middle level exams, and the proportion still repeating ninth grade. Students in
that situation did not pass their courses, and did not earn the local credits
required for graduation. So the Regents exam is not the problem. Weak
preparation for high school is the problem.
While more
students overall graduated, which continues a pattern of increase for several
years, still only 67.5 percent of those entering 9th grade in 2000 graduated
four years later. That is far too low. The graduation rates for some minority
students are lower still: 42 percent of Hispanic students and 45.4 percent of
Black students. This is an illustration of the gap that so troubles the Regents,
and should trouble all New Yorkers enough to act.
In a press
briefing on March 9, I described what we are doing to improve results. It will
be difficult. This is a conversation school leaders need to encourage in every
community.
The
National Summit on High School
The National Governors
Association Summit on High School in Washington last month added urgency to
raising standards, improving achievement, and redesigning high school to
accomplish these goals for all students.
New York has already taken most of the steps proposed at the Summit, but
we can do more to realize the potential of our policies and actions. But New York’s advantage, that resulted
from early leadership in standards-based reform, will be temporary unless we
press on in the light of the determination of other states. In particular the
Summit adds urgency to the Regents pending decision to move the minimum passing
score to 65.
The Summit
began with the voices of students and recent graduates who had recognized
belatedly that they hadn’t worked hard enough in high school and were not
prepared for college or work. Then
we reviewed the national data, which is best summarized by this
progression:
For every 100 students
entering the 9th grade:
- 68 graduate high school on
time
- 40 enroll immediately in
college
- 27 are still enrolled by
sophomore year
- 18 graduate college on
time (BA in 6 years or AA in 3 years)
Bill Gates
said, “America’s high schools are obsolete” because even working as they were
designed, they cannot educate all the children. Only a fraction of our children
are getting the best education. For the rest he said, “Either we think they
can’t learn, or we think they aren’t worth teaching.” He deplored this situation as an
economic and moral failure.
What should
we do? In his view, we should declare that all students will graduate high
school ready for college, work and citizenship and then make it so, publish data
on progress toward this goal, and intervene strongly in struggling high
schools.
New York
has taken, for the most part, four of the five steps advocated in the
Summit: 1) restore value to the
high school through improved standards, curricula and assessments that align
with the expectations of college and the workplace; 2) give high school students
the teachers and principals they need; 3) hold schools and colleges accountable
for student success and intervene in low-performing schools; and 4) streamline
educational governance so that the K-12 and post-secondary systems work more
closely together. We know that we
can do more to effectuate all of these actions. On the fifth item --redesigning
the high school to ensure all students graduate with high skills–we are just
beginning. But even here, we have
advantages to build upon, including a better data system than all but a few
states, and strong foundations in the other Regents education reforms.
At the Superintendents Advisory
Council meeting this month, Newfane Superintendent of Schools Jim Mills said,
“New York faces the opportunity of the decade just as we did in 1995” when
Regents and local leaders raised standards in the midst of a national commitment
to standards-
based reform. He’s right. We got farther in that effort
than anyone. Now our challenge is
to do the same with high school.
Summer
Reading
An encouraging example of USNY
in action is the summer reading program, which is a partnership between the
State Library and EMSC and is visible in libraries everywhere in New York. More
than a million children from the very young through high school participated
last year. The Regents challenge to read 25 books a year isn’t just for the
school months. The benefits of a summer reading program are obvious to any
teacher who had to teach again in September the literacy skills that seemed
strong in June, only to weaken during a bookless summer. “How can we expand this
program?” is the question before the Full Board.
Learning English
Only 34.5
percent of English Language Learners (ELL) in the class of 2004 graduated from
high school. That is the central fact we must change. Almost 40 percent of ELL
students in that class were still enrolled and might graduate later, but nearly
one in five has already dropped out. New York has educated generations of new
Americans. It’s part of our heritage. We can do better than
this.
This month
the Regents will discuss a fine but challenging report that contains these and
other data about New York children learning English, the schools they attend,
and some of the barriers to their progress. The schools for these children differ in
performance. For example, the schools in the lowest performance quartile are
more likely to be designated Schools in Need of Improvement under the No Child
Left Behind Act, and the children are more likely to be poor and have a
disability than is the case in the highest quartile.
As we saw
in the reports on all students who entered ninth grade in 2000, many ELL
students have not taken Regents exams. For example, almost 40 percent in New
York City had not taken Regents mathematics.
In October,
the Regents identified 10 strategies to improve ELL performance. As the Board
requested, this report provides an implementation plan and a schedule of
periodic reports to the Board. As
we go forward, we might concentrate on the most powerful of those strategies.
For example, let’s see how many teachers for ELL children complete certification
in the November 2005 report, and let’s do all we can to make that a big number.
(See page 10 in the plan). And let’s provide for these children in the Regents
2005-06 budget recommendation. (See page 18).
24-Month
Calendar
The Regents adopted the new
strategic plan and annual priorities in February. This month, they will discuss,
with the intent of approving, a revised 24-month calendar of policy decisions
and policy reviews. The purpose is to ensure adequate time for the Board to
study data and consult widely before making decisions. The calendar also informs
interested parties so that they can engage the Regents on the issues.
Revised Meeting
Format
The
Committee on Quality will bring to the Board a proposal for more time for both
Full Board and committee debate. This proposal reflects ideas developed in
committee in February.
The
proposal would have Regents meet every six weeks starting next year. This would
resolve long-standing problems of insufficient time for the Department to
prepare Regents items and for members to prepare for the meetings. The proposed
format would be consistent from month to month, which would eliminate the
wasteful effort to design unique schedules every month. There would be regularly
scheduled time for constituents and legislative advocacy. The Board would have
10 meetings a year: eight regular meetings including two outside of Albany, a
two-day retreat in June (right after the regular June meeting), and a two day
meeting in February devoted entirely to legislative advocacy both in Albany and
in Washington. The total amount of committee time during the year would
increase.
Change in
something as fundamental as our meeting schedule is difficult, but the current
situation is a barrier to effective Regents and State Education Department
operations and communications. The
proposed schedule will better support the Regents work on their priorities. It
is also a critical element of preparing the State Education Department for the
future. I urge the Board to adopt the proposal.
Leadership Academy
III
We will introduce to the Regents
in March the third graduating class of the State Education Department’s
Leadership Academy. The Chancellor and I will award certificates to the 22
graduates. The Leadership Academy is a demanding year-long program that is part
of our commitment to succession planning and professional development. It is one
more way to help prepare the Department for the future.
The Department senior
leadership assigned four challenging topics to the members of the Leadership
Academy as a graduation requirement and we are reviewing their reports now for
potential application. One member of each of the four teams will provide a
two-minute summary of the projects. The four topics are:
·
Criteria for Measuring Successful Interagency
Collaborations.
·
Information Access and Confidentiality Assurance
·
Using Public Television Digital Broadcasting to Enhance
Lifelong Learning in New York State.
·
Creative Resources to Expand SED Capacity.
A Look at the Data on CUNY’s
Progress
The Higher
Education and Professional Practice Committee will discuss a report that
compares 1999-2000 data with currently available results related to the Regents
1999 approval of the CUNY master plan amendment. There is a helpful summary but
the report itself is organized for easy review. Each section states a finding,
presents supporting data, and adds further explanation in bullet form. This is a
good model for a monitoring report.
Here are
some of the major findings:
- The overall pattern of
enrollment by ethnicity is similar in the two periods, but there has been a
small decline in the percentage of minority enrollment.
- However, there has been an
increase in enrollment for all ethnic groups in first-time, full-time
baccalaureate programs.
- The one-year retention
rates for regularly admitted and SEEK full-time enrolled in CUNY baccalaureate
programs remained over 80 percent.
