The budget request does not yet include our State school aid proposal. Our 1997-98 budget proposal calls for no new State funded positions but seeks important increases in curriculum and assessment, support for low performing schools, summer institutes in the arts, preschool special education, higher education and other aid to local communities. Our State operations budget would increase by 2.3 percent. The arts are part of the essential knowledge and skill Arts teachers visited me recently to ask why the school report card includes no data on the arts. But let's look deeper.
Measurement helps drive performance.
A visit to the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education revealed one source of the high performance in some schools. The Institute has a powerful approach to defining standards and building capacity which not only enhances students' performance in the arts but also could improve results in other parts of the curriculum. The concept is a model for what we must do next with the resource guides to support the newly adopted Regents standards. The public and the higher education community should have better information on the performance of New York colleges and universities. The purpose should be to inform the public about choices and also to support quality improvement in the institutions.