BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS
July 1998
BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER
RICHARD P. MILLS
The Regents this month will bring to a close the first phase of a remarkable effort to improve the capacity of schools to educate all students to high standards. After nearly two years of work, the Regents Task Force on Teaching -- supported by hundreds of people who testified before them, and nearly three dozen State Education Department Staff – has proposed sweeping changes in how one becomes a teacher and remains current in that role.
The pressures surrounding this decision are enormous. I have had ample time to say what should and should not be included in the draft paper, and so has every other interested person. I would add only this: the decisions made today set the path for the next generation. In the coming decade, New York will add about 100,000 new teachers. We must be sure that each one has the knowledge, skill, and commitment to educate every child to the standards. That’s a hard mark to reach, particularly when the calls and letters mount in the closing moments. But it’s supposed to be hard.
At this moment I think of the oath of office written for me on my first day on the job by the fourth grade in P.S. 31 in the South Bronx. Among other things, they made me promise not to conclude my work "until all the schools are safe and all the children have all the books, computers and teachers they need." They were not asking for just any teachers, but teachers who are equal to the best that I saw in that school. For me, the Regents vote is about fulfilling a promise to the fourth grade.
School administrators, teachers, parents, and students have written to me about the most recent Regents earth science exam. The results appear to be down from last year. State Education Department staff examined sample results and consulted independent subject matter experts on test questions. They also reanalyzed pre-test data. We found that the test meets the state standard for content and difficulty. There is no reason to adjust the passing score. I empathize with local educators who are working hard to improve student performance, and also with families that suddenly find vacation plans disrupted by the demands of summer school. But I cannot and would not lower the standard set by the Regents.
We are entering a really difficult part of our campaign to improve educational performance. In the years just ahead, students must pass the English and mathematics Regents exams to graduate. We have distributed copies of sample exams, discussed the questions on television, and in other ways backed the efforts of teachers, boards, and administrators to boost local capacity. It’s going to get harder before it gets easier, but we are going to press on.
The Regents Commission on Libraries will soon take up its important work. In that context, I was struck by recent press stories (New York Times, May 31, and July 4) about the importance of libraries in the lives of recent immigrants. Queens is the most diverse county in the United States, and the borough’s library system has the highest circulation of any in the country. It offers ESL programs in some locations, and through Internet access enables recent arrivals to stay in touch with news from home. At the Brooklyn Public Library, a Multilingual Center opened last fall to serve the 150 ethnic groups in the borough. Print materials in 60 languages are available, in addition to the Internet access. The librarians are bilingual, with a focus on Hebrew, Kreyol, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian.
I visited the New York Public Library’s new Science Industry and Business Library with Regents and Deputy Commissioner Carole Huxley, and was astonished by the amount of information technology available to the user – which was well supported by training programs -- and by the very heavy use by the public. This library is a particularly important source of information on international trade and other support for doing business globally.
There is action in other cities as well. Rochester targets senior citizens for training in the use of electronic resources. Schenectady has a Small Business Center, with a database of 11 million business addresses. Schenectady’s circulation continues to climb even as electronic access increases. In still other cities, however, libraries are struggling. In Albany, public library spending is down nine percent since 1995, and book delivery to shut-ins has ceased. Troy Public Library branch hours have been severely curtailed.
A corollary to the Regents firm stand on student standards has been a search for every reasonable approach to help students meet the standards. This month Regents will read the report of the Safety Net Work Group, which Deputy Commissioner Jim Kadamus convened. Their report is worth study and discussion.
Nearly every conversation about high standards includes questions about how we will help students who have difficulty. One of the ways to defend the standards is to find concrete answers to the questions.
Some of the group’s recommendations give additional weight to work we are already doing – for example, the State Education’s new core curriculum guides. Other recommendations are new and will need very detailed analysis – for example, the call for required summer school in certain cases.
Some of the new ideas I find very interesting. For example, the panel recommends that students who fail portions of the Regents exam within certain limits, but pass other portions, might be permitted to retake only portions that they failed, after additional instruction. I’ve asked State Education Department staff to examine the feasibility of that idea.
One recommendation in the proposal I do not like – the recommendation that students who fail the exam could be allowed to take an oral exam or submit a project to a local panel. This idea does not seem consistent with Regents policy, which you debated and adopted quite recently.
Television is on the brink of a significant change in technology: digital transmission. This has the potential not only to improve the quality of the pictures because the signal will carry so much more data, but also will allow the transmission of several different services at the same time. There will be much more capacity available. Think, for example, of the potential of continuous remedial help on Regents exams. We have such a program now, but on a very limited basis.
Unless the federal government changes its policy, all public television stations must convert to digital transmission by 2003, with some markets forced to convert much earlier. This will be a costly undertaking. The Regents will want to take notice because of our strong interest in public television, and also because of the new capacity to deliver educational and cultural material through this medium. I have been working with the public television stations on this issue in the context of the 1999-2000 budget request.
During the 1998 legislative session, the Regents proposed two major legislative changes affecting special education. These proposals would have brought New York State Education law and State funding provisions into line with the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). While legislation was introduced in both houses, nothing passed.
This could be a major problem for school districts since State and Federal law now conflict. We have told school districts to comply with IDEA regardless of the status of state law. We will also advocate for passage of these legislative proposals at the earliest possible date to assure the continuation of federal funding.
In December 1997, the Regents defined as policy that "All students with limited English proficiency will be provided with the intensive English language instruction that will allow them to meet the English standards and pass the English Regents Examination." All students entering 11th grade this fall must pass the Regents English Exam before they graduate.
Current regulations, which require students to receive at least 180 minutes per week of instruction in speaking, reading and writing English are not sufficient. These regulations amount to four or five periods a week. On the basis of very fine work by staff of the State Education Department, I am proposing that students receive between two and three periods of English per day, depending on their grade level and proficiency in English. Newly arriving LEP high school students would receive three periods of English per day when they first enter school. All others would receive two periods per day.
There are a number of other elements to the proposal. All LEP students will be held to the same high standards and expectations as other students. The English language arts core curriculum will be used in English as a second language classes that all bilingual students must take. The 3000 bilingual education teachers will receive training on how to teach the English standards. Almost half of them have taken part in some training in the last year. Parents or guardians of newly enrolled LEP students will be offered at least two hours of orientation on the standards, and we will do this within the first semester that a student is enrolled. Finally, newly enrolled students will get a two-week head start in their schoolwork through an intensive English language program.
I commend the work of my colleagues in bilingual education, and thank the many scholars and practitioners from New York and from around the nation who responded to our request for assistance in formulating this proposal.
We will make sure that students who are not yet proficient in English get the knowledge and skills they need to meet the same expectations that Regents hold for all children.
At the June Regents meeting, we discussed the report of the State Panel, which outlined deficiencies in stark terms. Immediately after that, I ordered the Roosevelt Board to take a series of actions by certain dates to correct all the problems cited by our panel. After issuing my order, I met with the Roosevelt Board to underscore my belief that they could accomplish the enumerated tasks, but I also made clear that I would supercede that board if they did not act, and as a next step, would recommend removal to the Regents. The State Education Department has also begun conversations with other state officials concerning a solution to long term financial problems in the district.
Just before the July Regents meeting, Dr. Anthony Pecorale, Chair of the State’s District Review Panel, reported that the newly reorganized Roosevelt Board has taken many actions that are consistent with the order. Deputy Commissioner Jim Kadamus has asked the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education to review the
State’s implementation of the legislation regarding Roosevelt. This is consistent with our practice of seeking evaluation of our performance at every opportunity.
As we continue our work on developing and supporting strong school leadership I believe it is important to communicate the urgency of this issue with the public. Attached is a copy of a recent NYS School Boards Association article I wrote on the subject.
NEW YORK SCHOOL BOARDS - JUNE 29, 1998
By Richard P. Mills - Commissioner of Education
| We confer the mantle of local school leadership with no ceremony and little
sense of the responsibility involved. I think we are all the poorer for it. That struck me
last week on the long drive home from the ordination of a new minister in a small country
church where I was once a member. The ordination was rich in meaning and powerful in shared commitment An
elder pastor questioned the minister-to-be in the presence of us all. Was she certain of
her calling? Would she be faithful to her duty? Would she be diligent in her study? Would
she treat all alike? Would she keep secret what people told her in confidence? And to each
question, she promised that she would. A minister from another congregation admonished her
not to give her whole life to the task, but to keep something back for herself and for her
family. A member of a neighboring congregation admonished us to speak the truth in love to
the new minister and told us not to expect her to know what we did not share. A minister who had served that church in earlier times preached on the meaning of ministry and the frailties of those called to that life. The new minister's father read powerful, ancient words from Isaiah. The choir filled the church with baroque music, and we in turn stunned them with old Welch hymns. Finally, a minister in authority explained the laying on of hands which would accomplish the ordination. Imagine, he said, a long chain of hands extending back to the beginnings of the faith. And with that, all present, young and old joined hands with each other and with him as he ordained the new leader. The minister and the congregation then exchanged commitments of support and service. We embraced the new leader and flowed out on to the lawn for a meal together. When we left, leader and community were joined in purpose, uplifted, rock-solid. |
 We can keep it simple,
|
Is there anything remotely like
that in the way we launch a superintendent of schools? In one region of New York, when a
new superintendent begins, I am told, every currently serving superintendent calls to
offer support. But that is not commonplace. For most superintendents, there is no sharing
of commitments from the community. There are no public symbols linking the new leader to
the long line of leaders who came before. No one reads from our history and our doctrine.
No one points publicly to the connected responsibilities of leader and followers, and
there is no acknowledgement of the leader's need to keep something for self and family. Do I press the analogy too far? I don't think so. The average volunteer fire company makes a grander gesture over the installation of a new chief than we do over the superintendent who leads education in the community. Higher education does a better job in greeting new leadership. When the most humble college inaugurates a new president, an exacting ceremony conveys the significance of leadership. Trustees. alumni, students and faculty promise support. Marshals parade the symbols of the college. Marks of authority are given and put on. Representatives of distant colleges assemble in academic robes, to show the connection to the wider community of learning. Education commissioners are treated to a richer tradition than the school superintendent is. When I left my last assignment. students came to thank me, my friends assembled, a bagpiper saluted me and then with great dignity piped me out. When I came to New York, the students of P.S. 31 gave me the key to their school and helped administer the oaths of office, including one they had written themselves for the occasion. How could I ever forget the importance of my charge or overlook the many who are ready to help if asked? And yet, how little do we say to local school leaders of our stake in their success, and how little do we offer of ourselves to aid their work? We can keep it simple, and every community can do it in a unique way, but we ought to establish some ceremony to go with the installation of local school leadership. It is a great calling and we can pause to recognize those who respond to it. This article is featured on New York State School Boards OnLine. 8-063329 98-139 PM |
A monthly publication of the State Education Department
