January 2006
BY STATE EDUCATION COMMISSIONER
RICHARD P. MILLS
The Meeting
in Brief: The Regents have asked for urgent action
on the issues addressed in their Education Summit with USNY leaders. In January,
they will discuss the Call to Action. The Regents are scheduled to decide policy
on early education. The Regents will conduct their annual evaluation of the
Commissioner in executive session, which the Board postponed from the December
meeting. The Higher Education and
Professional Practice committee will hear a report from James Wyckoff and Daniel
Boyd from SUNY Albany regarding the independent study being conducted that
examines the different pathways for teacher preparation and their impact on
student achievement. The EMSC-VESID Committee will discuss the proposed design
for the Vocational Rehabilitation system in the context of the Board priority to
prepare the State Education Department for the future. The Regents will review
and act on charter school applications. The Regents will discuss their proposed
federal agenda in preparation for a decision in February.
Call to
Action
The
Regents have deplored the gap in achievement and challenged New York to raise
academic achievement overall for many years. Over a decade the Board deployed
comprehensive reforms and performance has improved, as we can see in both
NAEP and state test results, but we need still more improvement. To that end,
the Regents convened the Education Summit and mobilized USNY to still greater
action. They used data about the gap at every level from Pre-K through graduate
school, and compelling testimony about the global stakes if we fail to raise
achievement for all.
Summit participants accepted that challenge, agreed
that in spite of recent improvements, current performance is not sufficient, and
embraced three Regents priorities: early education, high school, and higher
education. The Summit revealed broad commitment to action among USNY
leaders. The Regents built this
commitment through months of regional meetings and also through their policy
work in committee and full Board. In December, the Regents called for urgent
follow-through, and many Board members are leading that follow-through in the
communities they represent.
Where do
we stand now? In response to the
Chancellor’s request, we have A Call to Action, which presents a
communication plan; a structure for state, regional and local action; and
guidance for both policy and practice in early education, high school, and
higher education. Here are some of
the observations Regents made about the Summit last month: The Summit advanced
the related issues of raising achievement and closing the gap. We are starting
the next generation of the reform effort, and we have begun to refine our
message. Our standards, accountability, and State aid work provide the
foundation for a Pre-K through 16 vision of education. We will show the public and elected
representatives results from the funds they invest from all sources: local,
state, and federal. And we are
particularly determined to make urgent progress in early education, high school,
and higher education.
Continuous
communication to the educational community and the public is essential, and it
needs to answer this question: Why is this performance gap my problem? Many
leaders who participated in the Summit have followed through on personal
commitments to communicate. In addition, I spoke to 20 groups about the Summit
themes.
The
material on policy and practice in A Call to Action builds upon
recent Regents policy decisions and on-going policy discussions. To achieve
urgency, the Call points to the most immediate, high-leverage
actions to improve results. The Regents are about to decide policy on early
education this month, and have already decided policy on higher education
through the Statewide Plan for Higher Education. Their work on high school
continues at an urgent pace, with new data that underscores the gaps in
achievement and opportunity in the lowest performing high schools.
The Deputy
Commissioners and I established an internal steering group of senior staff.
Their charge is to ensure rapid and coherent follow-through within the State
Education Department on work from the Summit in response to Regents policy. The
District Superintendents are committed to follow through regionally, as is The
Business Council. The State Education Department staff members have participated
in their own Summit, which enabled them to understand the same issues and data
that Regents and other USNY leaders considered in November. The staff summit,
like the USNY Summit, concluded with personal statements of commitment.
What can we do next? Again, in January the Regents
plan to decide early education policy and discuss high school teacher data,
starting with mathematics teachers. Chancellor Bennett and I propose that the
Regents devote Regents committee and full Board meeting time over the next three
months to discuss the three priorities, starting with a session on high schools
and related topics with Chancellor Joel Klein in February, followed by similar
discussions in March on implementing early education policy and implementing the
higher education plan. In April, we
can again check from a Pre-K through 16 perspective to ensure coherence and
rigor in both policy framework and implementation. The full Board sessions, guided by the
work of the Quality Committee, will keep attention on the links across USNY that
appear in all three issues. These discussions build on the Regents desire for
more full Board time and would focus on a vital few actions, supported by data.
The aim is to build on the momentum created at the Summit.
Early
Education: Policy Decision
The EMSC-VESID
Committee prepared the Regents for their policy decision on early education. A
major strength of the proposal is that it is comprehensive and systematic. In response to the December discussion,
that committee will discuss two questions:
The
State Aid Subcommittee will address: how to aid full-day kindergarten and
Universal Pre-kindergarten.
While
early education implementation won’t be discussed in detail until March, we
begin now to consider cross-USNY issues. For example, pre-kindergarten capacity
will include teacher preparation. We will want to know how many more teachers
the policy will require when fully implemented, and where they will come from.
Capacity building also involves encouraging teacher preparation programs to
embrace the pre-kindergarten program performance indicators in the policy so
that new teachers are ready when they start.
Another
cross-USNY issue involves transition from pre-kindergarten to elementary school.
There are many issues here, including differences between early education and
elementary school teacher pay scales, teacher preparation and certification,
assessments, and parent engagement practices. We will look for ways to encourage local
school leaders who are building stronger transitions. For example, school
superintendents who can quickly tell you how many children are born each year in
the communities they serve obviously have built connections with agencies beyond
the schools. As those connections—and that dimension of leadership—become
commonplace, it will be an indication that we are gaining the benefits of
pre-kindergarten.
Improving
High School: The Essential Next Step
In New York,
fewer than two-thirds of the students who entered 9th grade in 2000
graduated in four years. The problem is concentrated in 127 schools with
graduation rates below 70 percent.
In December, the Regents examined data that compared those schools with
all others.
Demographic
Characteristics of Selected High Schools and All High Schools in
2003-04
Characteristic |
Selected |
All |
Percent
Eligible for FRPL |
60 |
34 |
Percent
Disabled |
14.5 |
13.1 |
Percent
Limited English Proficient |
14.2 |
5.8 |
Percent
Repeating Grade 9 |
24 |
15.3 |
Student
Stability |
96 |
98 |
Percent
certified teachers |
79 |
92 |
Books
per 100 Students |
1,180 |
1,452 |
Computers
per 100 students |
13 |
24 |
Suspension
Rate |
7.7% |
8.1% |
These data
underscore Kati Haycock’s message at the Summit: what happens to children once
they get to school is a big part of the problem. The data also echo Perform
or Perish, a prescient report to the Regents in 1994. The students in these
schools are more likely to have teachers who, while certified, are not certified
in the subject they teach.
Regents
demand urgent improvement in high school performance. The Board considered seven actions they
could take to accomplish that, and they are restated below. These actions would build on existing
Board policy: higher standards, assessments, accountability, course requirements
for graduation, the SURR process, a governance system with a pre-K through 16
reach, teacher standards and improvements in teacher education, and the
foundation formula proposal for State Aid. This month the Regents will discuss
data about the certification of mathematics teachers in low performing high
schools.
In
addition, the Destination Diploma series of workshops created a professional
community among faculty and administrators in the 127 schools. School teams devoted eight days this
year to work on promising practices with a high probability of success,
including:
·
Transition
from middle to high school
·
Expanding
Career and Technical Education
·
Improving
literacy across the curriculum
·
Effective
extra help
·
Better
strategies for students with disabilities and English Language
Learners
·
Transition
from high school to college and careers
Here,
again, are the seven actions that can advance the Regents work on high
schools.
The EMSC-VESID
Committee will discuss a proposal to improve reporting of violent and disruptive
incidents in schools. This is an
essential step for ensuring safety in all schools, but it is particularly timely
to the Regents debate about low performing high schools. The proposal describes
the policy issues and ways to resolve them. Here are the policy
issues:
·
Timely,
accurate and consistent reporting of data by school districts.
·
Establishment
of an incentive/sanction system that promotes the accurate reporting of
incidents and effective interventions in schools.
·
Identification
and weighting of incidents used in designating a school as potentially
persistently dangerous.
·
Elimination
of reporting bias due to large or small
enrollments.
·
Process
to determine which schools that have been preliminarily identified should be
designated as persistently dangerous.
·
Support
to be given to schools participating in violence reduction initiatives and those
identified as persistently dangerous.
In June
the Board will consider the potential designation of schools as persistently
dangerous for the 2006-07 school year.
VESID
has produced a design for a renewed vocational rehabilitation (VR) system that
responds to the global economic challenge, expands capacity, and helps realize
the potential of USNY. It is a particularly thoughtful example of the emerging
State Education Department of the future.
The EMSC-VESID
Committee will discuss this design in preparation for a May full Board review of
the timeline and strategies for implementation.
The Regents have
espoused a compelling vision about the independence of persons with disabilities
and with the State Education Department they have pursued strategies to bring
that vision to life in pre-kindergarten, state aid systems, teacher policy,
regional facilities planning, access to the regular curriculum in school,
advocacy for Independent Living Centers, and higher education access.
Approximately 300,000 New Yorkers of working age have a disability but no
job. Having a job is part of
independence for most people. New
York has not yet made significant inroads into the employment of persons with
disabilities.
The VESID design
for a renewed vocational rehabilitation system promises a much higher level of
achievement. Among the many
attractive features are:
·
Rapid
access to services
·
Transition
services from school to employment
·
Enhanced
collaboration with other public agencies
·
Expanded
one-stop access for consumers
·
Linkage
with the Workforce Investment Board system
·
Electronic
records
·
More
efficient use of the critical skills of VR counselors though a team
concept
·
Better
milestones to assess system performance
·
Comprehensive
marketing
This
design responds to Regents priorities and public needs at many levels, and it
merits support leading to rapid implementation.
Here is another
response to the commitments we made to prepare the State Education Department
for the future: redesign grants management. Grants management involves all parts
of the Department and $2.6 billion.
This has a huge effect on the work and effectiveness of USNY
institutions. A cross-Department team has developed a single comprehensive
assurance package, a standardized Request for Proposals (RFP) template,
streamlined budget formats, and expedited payment and financial reporting
systems. All five Deputies will use these new practices.
The new system
shifts the focus from overseeing the grant application to monitoring results for
effectiveness. It removes pointless variations among different grants programs,
and accelerates delivery of funds to where they can do the job intended.
Additional stages in this redesign will deliver on-line application and review,
and fully electronic records management.
Regents
Federal Agenda
The Regents will
discuss a draft statement of their priorities for federal legislation this month
to prepare for a decision in February.
The draft reflects Regents policy priorities and the aims developed at
the Education Summit. This USNY
oriented draft underscores the connections among federal, state and local
financial commitments. The 109th Congress will take up
reauthorization debates that mirror many of the Regents policy discussions and
prior decisions. No Child Left
Behind reauthorization is scheduled for the 110th Congress, but
important preparations will probably begin this year. Workforce Investment Act
reauthorization is important to the Regents work on closing the gap and
developing the vocational rehabilitation system of the future. The Higher Education Act has not yet
passed both houses. If it does, that material will not appear in the February
draft. The Regents policy
discussion on early education will have a federal counterpart in the Head Start
reauthorization. Regents interest
in the congressional debates on cultural education will focus on continuation of
federal funding.
The Regents
decision on their federal agenda will frame our advocacy during the
109th Congress, both in New York and especially in Washington,
DC. We will share it with members
of the Congress, congressional staff, and the many interested groups.
A monthly publication of the State Education Department
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