BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER RICHARD P. MILLS
March 2000
BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER
RICHARD P. MILLS
That is the summary of issues before the Regents in March. Now for some details:
Reject the Executive proposal to remove the State Library from Regents care. That has to be part of every conversation about education until the appropriations bill is adopted and signed. Most New Yorkers are not students in school or college. The primary educational institution that most of us attend is the local library. Libraries – along with museums, archives, and public television, are fundamentally educational institutions. The argument that they should be apart from the Regents and the State Education Department is not supportable.
What is supportable is greater state investment in libraries. For years we have advocated for funds to enhance the capacity of libraries. This year, the Regents request for libraries has two components:
Taken together, the initiatives are an aggressive effort to provide both infrastructure and strong direction for the future of libraries.
Legislators assembled to hear testimony on the Regents budget proposal probably expected to hear about state aid first. But before I did that, I talked about VESID and that was to make a point. The Regents budget proposals for VESID are appropriate. And timing is everything. Numbers that look achievable prior to a state aid discussion will be out of reach once that discussion has concluded. I urged legislators to take care of this problem first.
State funds for the vocational rehabilitation program have remained level for three years and the Executive proposal recommends no increase for yet another year. VESID caseloads are increasing as Workforce Investment and Welfare to Work strategies draw more adults with disabilities into vocational rehabilitation.
And there are other challenges. For the first time in more than 20 years, funds to New York State from the federal Rehabilitation Act have decreased. Regents will hear from a panel of individuals representing VESID partner organizations regarding the importance of maintaining a strong vocational rehabilitation system.
In December 1999, the Board endorsed the goals of the report of the Task Force on Postsecondary Education and Disabilities to increase access to postsecondary education for students with disabilities. The Board will now join leaders of the four higher education sectors to commit to achieve the goals of the report and to appoint a Standing Committee to oversee the implementation of strategies to meet these goals.
Recommendation: Recommended that the Regents approve the appointment of the Standing Committee.
The State Plan for the administration of career and vocational and technical education under the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act drives a billion-dollar investment.
Joint effort with all our partners has been the hallmark of our work on workforce development. In developing the Coordinated Education Plan, Department staff assembled many contributors to the State’s workforce development system. The Plan connects activities across the Department’s Offices of Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education, Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities, Higher Education and Cultural Education.
This is one component of an overall New York State Coordinated Education Plan that we will send to the U.S. Department of Education. The other components include the State Plans for Title 2 of the Workforce Investment Act and Title 4 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of the Workforce Investment Act.
Recommendation: Recommend Regents approval of two elements of the Plan: the State Plan for the Administration of Career and Vocational and Technical Education and the State Plan for Vocational Rehabilitation and Supported Employment
Last month’s review of the lowest performing schools underscored the urgent need for Regents action to extend school accountability. We saw how many schools that once performed farthest from the standards improved but only enough to get off the SURR list. No school has ever fallen back, but very few have soared much higher either. In other schools, students on average perform well but some students are left behind. Part of the common ground in this debate is that students can’t be left behind in the push for higher performance. So what can we do?
The whole system of standards, curriculum and instruction, funding and accountability must be aligned. New York needs a more comprehensive accountability system. We have discussed the concept for a year and made many adjustments in response to comments from educators. And it was essential that we did listen. The pressures on local educators are great and their leadership is vital to success. Now it’s time to implement the accountability concept through regulations.
Regents will examine an overview of draft regulations this month. The regulations enable the Commissioner to designate three categories of schools: far from, below or meeting State standards. Regulations will also establish annual targets, require improvement plans for schools that fail to make adequate progress and recognize schools that improve rapidly against those targets. We will make additional recommendations to add elements of the school accountability proposal, including provisions to designate schools as exceeding standards.
In April the Regents will review regulations that will enable the Commissioner to set accountability standards for high school equivalency programs. The revisions to the regulations being proposed at this time do not affect accountability for nonpublic schools, which will be addressed separately at a later time.
The new School Report Cards will enrich the statewide and local discussion of student achievement in relation to the standards. Every community can help boost performance by talking about the results, and local leaders have the data required for the task. The Regents can help by modeling this discussion at their March examination of the School Report Cards.
There are plenty of good questions to ask. Are the gaps starting to close? Where that is happening, why is it happening and how can we best press our advantage? Where progress lags, what can we and our partners do next?
In January we saw the seniors’ strong performance on the English Regents exams and we used those results to good effect in the budget presentation. But how are students doing in the tests that lie ahead in mathematics, global studies, American history, and the sciences? We saw in the October reports that many students repeat 9th grade in some of the Big Five urban school districts and we know that to be a pattern of long standing, but how is performance improving in these districts?
Here is what the Report Cards tell me: The students did far better than most predicted two years ago – although we believed in them even then. Many are also doing well on the tests that they don’t have to pass this year. And in many districts with the farthest to go there are impressive gains. We are not done yet. In the midst of success we see students who need extra help to meet the standards. The Regents were right to require all schools to provide that extra help and right to campaign for the funds to pay for it. Those who need extra help must get it. In spite of what critics claim, our children are making it. With the huge local effort involved, no one should be surprised.
At each landmark on the road to higher performance some people will say, "The road is too hard and too long. Can’t we just stop here? Shouldn’t we turn back?" Prepare to hear those cries again, always wrapped in protestations of support for the standards. I asked an Albany high school senior what she thought and her answer was direct and encouraging: "Students will rise to the occasion." The data certainly back her view, and so does what I have seen in countless school visits.
Peter Bijur, Chairman and CEO of Texaco and Chairman of the Business Council of New York, feels so strongly that he not only defended the standards to legislators and other business leaders but also published an advertisement. "If they can’t read, write or reason, how on earth will they survive? Don’t accept a meaningless diploma for your child." Regent Johnson and I heard much the same message from the members of the New York City Partnership this week.
In New York, the standards emerged only after extended and inclusive discussions. The standards themselves are reasonable. The assessments are fair, carefully designed, and valid. The core curriculum makes plain what students should study. We have communicated the expectations continuously and done a lot of listening, too. We have held schools accountable for results. The state has invested $2.4 billion more in the last three years. And while all of this may seem fast, it’s part of a nine-year phase in.
Look at the Report Cards. Tens of thousands of students in New York today are receiving a vastly better education than ever before. There are children who need more help and the Regents insist that they get that help. Pull back now? No. We should keep moving forward.
In December, the Board approved our third strategic plan. The next step is to identify targets for future performance. I will suggest a way to do this at the March Regents meeting.
We were responsible for encouraging school leaders to take advantage of the ten percent State Building Aid incentive to renovate school buildings. There has been a huge increase in the number of projects. Excluding New York City, the projects approved by the Office of Facilities Planning increased from $181 million in the last quarter of 1998 to $480 million during the same period of 1999 -- a 165 percent increase. The ten- percent incentive allows the average district to undertake 30 to 40 percent more construction with the same local effort. The incentive expires for projects approved by the voters on or after July 1, 2000, so we expect demand to be heavy in the months ahead.
This volume created a backlog in Department approvals. For the last several years it has taken six to eight weeks to get contract drawings reviewed. As of the end of February it was taking twelve weeks. We track this cycle time constantly and you can, too, on our webpage. Local educators are concerned about being able to start construction this summer when school is out and they worry that delays will negate the benefit of the incentive.
Two new clerical staff began work on February 2 to shorten the response time and answer phone calls. In addition, we will hire temporary staff to expedite the reviews of construction documents. Everyone can help meet the challenge of the volume. For example, some architects have submitted incomplete plans to secure a place in the line. That only leads to more calls and paperwork to fill the gaps. We will meet the architects to develop strategies to speed-up the approval process.
The Regents Task Force on Closing the Performance Gap and the Statewide Performance Advisory Council met in joint session on November 19 to discuss implementation of the strategies in the statement developed by the Advisory Council and the Large Five city school superintendents to close the student performance gaps.
At the November 19 meeting, Bill Baker, President of WNET/Channel 13 and a member of the Advisory Council, volunteered to chair a subcommittee to develop a more proactive approach to engage the media. We will talk strategy at the Annual Meeting of the NYS Association of Broadcasters in June.
We have approached the Pew Forum at Harvard about working with us to organize a national forum on closing the performance gap next fall.
While the Regents Task Force has worked through the data and the strategies, Regents and State Education Department staff have put their concepts in place as fast as they were developed. For example, this month we will have completed a long series of discussions in all of the Big Five schools districts. This included community meetings, talks with all the principals, editorial boards, and business groups. In New York City, we have done this in every borough.
Behind the scenes, Department staff continued the work. For example, in Buffalo, our school construction experts have helped local leaders find ways to invest in facilities on a huge scale. In New York City, we are concentrating on the Chancellor’s priority to recruit teachers. Every Regent in or near the Big Five can tell a story of purposeful actions that they have witnessed to bring the strategies of the Regents Task Force to life. Next month, Department staff will share a proposal with the Regents to establish a regional network of school improvement centers to work with the lowest performing schools. It’s time now to hear those stories in the context of the data that announces success and underscores the work still ahead.
The Blue Ribbon Panel on School Leadership met for the last time on February 18, with Vice Chancellor McGivern representing the Task Force. The Panel reached consensus on recommendations to be reviewed by the Regents Task Force on March 6. The recommendations, part of a more comprehensive statement on school leadership, are framed within the three dimensions of the problem facing school leadership in New York State:
Members of the Panel will attend the Regents meeting to speak to their recommendations. They have been an exceptionally dedicated group of leaders. We clearly turned to the right people for advice. Now it’s time to move in the direction they have indicated. The next step is to spell out the knowledge and skill that is essential for school leadership. This will become the template for recruitment and professional preparation. We will turn to that immediately.
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