November 2005
BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER
RICHARD P. MILLS
Meeting
in Brief:
The
Regents will convene leaders from many USNY institutions in an Education Summit
during the first day of the November Regents meeting. On the second day, the Regents Committee
on Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education-Vocational and
Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities will discuss educators’
reactions to the draft policy statement on early education and the proposed
schedule for new Regents mathematics exams. The Committee on Higher Education
and Professional Practice will discuss three regulations. The Cultural Education
Committee will review basic data about cultural institutions operated by the
State, for which the Regents serve as trustees.
Regents
Convene USNY for the Education Summit
The
Regents will convene USNY in an Education Summit on November 2. How did we get
to this day? The answer takes us back before the eight regional discussions this
year. It started even before the Regents began talking about the potential of
USNY in 2001. The Regents and their partners throughout USNY have worked toward
this Education Summit for many years by strengthening each sector of the
University.
Every
part of USNY has changed to raise performance. The resulting gains are evident
and the system is poised for still more change. Consider these examples. All
four sectors of higher education joined in a Statewide Plan for Higher
Education. The many library communities have united behind the New Century
Library concept. The State Museum and State Archives have envisioned the future
and defined practical steps to realize it.
Elementary and secondary education systems have embraced high standards
and recent data show the gaps starting to close. The professions have embraced
new strategies to ensure public protection and address workplace shortages and
practice issues. Disability issues are at the center of the system from early
education through graduate school, and VESID is designing a future that ensures
greater choice and more employment for persons with disabilities. The parts of USNY are strong. Now we
must attend to the connections among the parts.
Where
do we stand as the Summit convenes?
Achievement at every level in the education system has improved, and we
celebrate that result and the effort behind it. And yet the gains are not sufficient.
Gaps exist at every level along lines of income, race, ethnicity, language and
disability. These gaps are unjust, and also dangerous to our civic and economic
vitality. We know we live in a dynamic global environment. Other nations
understand the connections between education, work, and citizenship, and many of
them pursue with intensity an education agenda like our
own.
In
facing these challenges, New York has an advantage in the educational and
cultural institutions that together define the University of the State of New
York. Our charge is to use that advantage to improve achievement to the benefit
of all the people. To fully develop that advantage, we seek agreement on shared
aims. We seek commitment to a few
actions that if taken together, will improve results at three points: early
education, high school, and higher education. Excellence at those three points
will contribute significantly to New York’s vitality.
We
have distinguished speakers, and yet the essential work of the Summit will be
done not by the speakers but by all of us in discussions led by Regents and
other leaders at each table. To prepare us for that work, Kati Haycock of The
Education Trust will describe the achievement gap from early childhood through
college, and the imperative for change.
David
Gergen will lead a plenary session discussion of those issues, and then with
former Governor Gaston Caperton, will help us reflect on the responsibilities of
leaders – including all of us – given what we know about the achievement gap.
Cooper Union President George Campbell will turn our attention to the global
stakes in developing talent in mathematics, science, and engineering. He will introduce IBM Executive Vice
President Nicholas Donofrio, who will give us a personal account of the global
environment and its implications for educators.
With
those perspectives as background, we will turn to one another in small group
discussion to answer these questions: Do we in fact have common aims? Will we
commit to a few joint actions to accomplish those aims? What are those
actions?
The
Summit was never just a meeting. As we listen to one another on November 2, we
will be thinking about what we will do to make still greater progress. As the
Summit concludes, we will call upon a few USNY leaders to speak briefly about
what they and their institutions will do.
SED in
the Future
One
response to the issues developed in the Summit is our deliberate strategy to
prepare the State Education Department for the future. The Regents reviewed that
strategy in June, when we described “log jams” that we intend to break and how
major categories of our work will change. This month, the Regents have a
two-page chart following the same outline as the June report, which lists
elements of the future SED that are now in use. All the Deputies and all parts
of the State Education Department have contributed to this
work.
Early
Childhood Discussion
In
November the Regents will receive a report on comments from the field about the
Regents draft policy on
early education. The Regents will
decide whether there are elements of that proposal they would change. It is
anticipated that the board will adopt policy in January.
Early
education is one of three focal points for the Summit discussion, and one of the
Regents priority issues. Improved systems and results in early education will
have a long-term effect on the whole of USNY. It will also have significant financial
implications and the Regents will want to examine them.
Math
Regents Exams
The Regents asked the Department to summarize the
views of local educators on the schedule for introducing three new Regents exams
to match the revised mathematics standards. In October the Board considered
alternative implementation dates in 2008 and 2009 for the new Regents Algebra
exam. Both New York City and
suburban educators are calling for the 2008 implementation. We asked presidents
of colleges that prepare teachers to comment on the matter. There are, no doubt,
other views. However, the prevailing view so far is that the gathering momentum
favors early implementation. We could allow some extra time for later adapting
districts by maintaining both Math A and the new exam for a year. We would have to contract out the
development of test questions in the first year to cut a year from development,
but we are already working on a request for proposals to do that in case the
Regents choose the early implementation date.
A monthly publication of the State Education Department
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