May 1997
Report to the State Board of Regents

BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS


Graduation requirements

Buffalo hosted the first of the eight regional forums on graduation requirements this week. Large crowds gathered for both the afternoon and evening sessions. Regent Robert Bennett, Superintendent James Harris, and several others including parents, teacher educators, and business leaders helped answer questions. I asked four questions of the audience:

We offered partial answers for all of these questions and then looked to the audience and the panel for more. There is intense interest in this topic , not only in the educational community but also among the general public.

Among the many interesting suggestions were these: teachers, and especially those preparing to become teachers, need to know more about the jobs students will be offered when they graduate. Graduation requirements should open rather than limit career opportunities for students, particularly in technical fields. Course content, not just the number of courses, may be what matters most.

The great challenge throughout will be to remain open to new thinking about curriculum. The Regents will hear impassioned arguments from advocates for every part of the existing curriculum but we cannot afford to codify the status quo because we are aiming far higher.

In talking with several education audiences since that first forum, it seems that the general view is this: keep the pressure on for high standards for all, find practical answers to the "safety net" questions concerning the students who will need lots of support to meet those standards, and leave enough flexibility for local leaders to get the job done. There is still anxiety because of the magnitude of the changes involved, but people recognize now that the Regents and the State Education Department really are going to listen before they act.

A national test? Let's think about it

President Clinton has proposed a voluntary national test of fourth grade reading and eighth grade mathematics. New York should evaluate this opportunity. There are a number of attractive features and many unresolved issues as well.

The test will be based on the highly regarded National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP). The timetable for design and pilot testing is exceptionally ambitious, but the people working on this are very experienced and it is very likely that a high quality test will result. It would be very useful for New York to be able to compare our performance with other states. It will also be possible to compare with performance in 39 other nations that took part in the Third International Math and Science test.

Still, there are a number of important questions and issues. Will the test match New York's standards? It should because we considered nation-wide efforts as we built our standards. However, we won't know until we see the testing framework for the national test. How would we use the test? Would it be part of our testing system for all students, or used on a sample basis? Would we include the results in our school accountability system to make decisions about low performing schools? Would the results be helpful on the School Report Cards? We would need good answers for all of these questions.

Costs are unknown at this time. The President proposes that the federal government would pay the costs for the first year and possibly in future years, but states should undertake this with the expectation that state budgets would be paying the costs beyond the initial year. Unit costs for the NAEP have tended to be high and we expect the new test to cost significantly more than the cost we have been able to negotiate for our new elementary and middle grades testing. If New York decides to participate, it should be with the intention of staying with the program for the very long term so we must evaluate long term costs and benefits.

My recommendation to the Regents is that we not take a position now in the absence of important information, and that we begin a careful review of this opportunity with education leaders and many other interested parties, including elected officials, parents, business and the wider public. I will propose an advisory group to inform the Regents and the Department on this matter. Whatever the outcome of this review, we should continue our participation in the state-by-state NAEP tests because this provides valuable comparative data on our performance.

The 1998-99 budget

Prudent financial management requires that we simultaneously manage one budget, advocate for a second one, and create a third. The Regents receive monthly reports on our current 1997 spending, the 1998 budget awaits action in the Legislature and we will soon present a proposed 1999 budget. This will be our first multi-year budget and we are doing that because our strategic plan for all areas of the University of the State of New York project long range action. We have had a rigorous internal review of potential initiatives to make sure that the budget brings the plan to life and also to ensure that ideas that are well begun are provided for in future years.

Expanding public information about the professions

As of March 31, consumers of professional services now have access to information on the last three years of discipline actions taken by the Regents against licensed professionals. This expands the information that has been available since January. Consumers and employers now have information for 1994 through the first quarter of 1997. Future discipline summaries will be posted within one month of Regents action.

This initiative, along with others to provide extensive consumer information on professions, has received national media attention, and also attracted favorable notice in Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Society. Other states are beginning to contact us for ideas on how to improve their own consumer protection systems.

Serving the public through technology

We are rapidly becoming a very different state education department through careful expansion of our technology enhanced capacity.

The State Education Department's Office of Educational Television and Public Broadcasting achieved an audience of two and a quarter million viewers for Department-produced programming in 1997. The New York Learns program had an audience of over 600,000 and a recent edition of New York: the State of Education had 278,000 viewers and generated nearly 9,000 phone calls.

The State Archives and Records Administration Web Site experienced a big increase in activity in last quarter: 550,000 accesses, up from less than 350,000 in the previous three months. Members of the 38 licensed professions that we serve can get basic information from us 24 hours a day.

And there are other examples of technology use: our first "prevention conference" drew a thousand participants in 22 sites linked by television; we have nearly completed our 22 session series of teleconferences on standards; and next week the New York State Library will microfilm its one millionth page from New York newspapers.

What are schools doing to get ready?

The Regents have set an ambitious schedule for meeting the new standards. I recently asked a group of superintendents from all sections of New York to recount what they were doing to get their students and teachers ready. The range and assertiveness of local action surprised me. Here is only a partial list: mandatory after school programs, non-Regents courses eliminated, stronger mathematics and science curricula offered a grade earlier than before, Regents mathematics I courses offered in two, three, and four semester versions, mandated summer school program in study skills for some students, expanded pre-kindergarten programs using Title I funds, examination of third grade reading scores by all early grades teachers to ensure a strong curriculum, expanded Reading Recovery programs, "science dinner meetings" with science faculty from major research facilities to support science teachers, and lowering secondary teacher load below 100 students.

Many of these ideas are beyond the reach of low wealth schools. And yet I see the same intensity among leaders in the Big Five urban districts. Regents' budget proposals must continue to focus long term investments to back these local efforts.

Higher Education

The Regents are building a coherent policy agenda in higher education. We have begun extensive discussions with higher education leaders and we must extend these talks. The Regents and the State Education Department have not been perceived as active in higher education until very recently, so it would be easy to be misunderstood by the very institutions we are trying to support.

Consider these recent actions: a strategic plan that asserts high expectations for higher education along with all other parts of the University of the State of New York, removal of the trustees and appointment of a distinguished new board at Adelphi, emergence of a forceful Regents Task Force report on teacher preparation, public reporting of scores on teacher credential exams in relation to the institutions that prepared those teacher candidates, testimony on the higher education portion of the executive budget, Regents forums on campus climate, action on proprietary college applications for degree status, continuing discussions of how to measure higher education performance, and discussions with higher education on standards we would use to approve major changes in academic programs.

In short, the Regents and the State Education Department are very active in higher education. Why are we doing this? Because higher education has for more than two centuries been a legitimate concern of the Regents, and because the quality of higher education is extremely important to New York's economic, cultural, and civic life. We must signal through our actions that we will act prudently and in consultation with the many sectors of higher education. We have to bring people together. But we must act. New York must continue to have strong higher education institutions.

Getting ready for work

It always helps to remind even an audience of the most experienced educators of the purpose of education: to prepare all people for citizenship, work, and individual competence. Labor Commissioner John Sweeney and I have appeared jointly before a number of education and business audiences in the last year and our focus has been on one of those three purposes, preparation for work. New York has a very fragmented workforce development system. There is no coordinated oversight either at state or local levels, and no overall strategic focus for how New York uses its money in the intensely competitive task of keeping our work skills sharp.

For several months, the Department of Labor and the State Education Department have worked in concert to change this situation. We want to improve access to effective training programs, provide dramatically better data about where the jobs are and what it takes to prepare for them, set tougher program standards and accountability for results, and then confront difficult issues of structure and governance. I have invited Commissioner Sweeney to join me in discussing these issues with the Regents at an upcoming meeting.


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