Source: http://www.oms.nysed.gov/comm/2006/1006commrep.html
Timestamp: 2017-04-28 06:14:25
Document Index: 615516242

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 12', '§ 35', '§ 5', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 3', '§ 2']

The Regents will allocate most of its October meeting to Full Board discussion of a proposed P-16 strategy that emerged from their deliberations at the September meeting. Their purpose is to define their policy agenda going forward. At appropriate points during the P-16 discussion, the Board will debate high school graduation targets and attendance targets. Numerous other items will be taken up and decided through the Board’s consent agenda. The Regents will vote on their State aid recommendation for 2007-08. The Regents will vote on the draft Chapter 655 Report. The Regents will host the 18th Annual Archives Awards Luncheon to recognize excellence in archival work, and the scholarly use of archived materials.
Student achievement at all levels of the system, both the gains and the gaps, has been continuously before the Regents, the educational community, and the public. Since the last Regents meeting, reports on achievement of students with disabilities and all students in grades 3 through 8 in mathematics and English Language Arts have appeared in the context of the Board’s concern about closing the gap. In the months leading to the USNY Summit, Regents and USNY leaders built awareness of the potential to engage this achievement challenge with the strength of the whole University of the State of New York. A Call to Action outlined what USNY institutions can do. Meanwhile, Linda Sanford, co-chair of The Business Council, conducted many regional meetings devoted to economic development, education and innovation. Regents and the District Superintendents continue to host regional education summits. The Board pushed the matter even further in its policy discussions over the summer, and then spent the entire September Regents meeting on proposed actions. The Board decided to focus on thirteen actions to improve achievement for particular groups of students, and to strengthen systems and
structures to enable that improvement. These actions are summarized on page 5 of the attached proposal. Eight principles that are summarized on page 4 would guide the implementation. Both of those summaries are familiar to the Regents from earlier discussions. September’s Regents meeting concluded with these questions: What would it cost and do we have the capacity to take those actions? This is a multi-year plan. The actions would cost a total of $301.3 million, of which $73.2 million is already in hand. The additional funds include $69.9 million in the Regents 2007-08 budget recommendation, with the balance proposed for either 2008-09, or possibly through a revision of the Regents 2007-08 request. The actions would require a total of 348 staff, of which 160 are already working in SED, and an additional 188 that would be requested in 2007-08 and 2008-09. To help the Regents evaluate the proposed actions, the Board will receive a color-coded budget analysis that shows which actions are in which resource category. Chancellor Bennett decided to allocate much of the two-day October Regents meeting to discussion of the proposed P-16 plan. I commend to the Board the exceptional efforts of a great many people who worked in concert to incorporate the Regents ideas into this plan, including all Deputy Commissioners and their staff, Rebecca Kennard, Len Simms and Mary Drzonsc of Operations and Management Services for their financial analysis, and Alan Ray who assembled the ideas of many into a coherent whole.
An Update on Testing describes responses to the NCLB peer review of New York assessments. The Monthly Financial Report shows that all accounts are in structural balance. Regents will ask questions about this report as part of their monitoring of Department financial integrity.
The Board is receiving two items on closing the achievement gap: setting targets for graduation rates and attendance.
q Close the great divide in achievement along lines of income, race and ethnicity, language, and disability. q Keep up with growing demands for still more knowledge and skill in the face of increasing competition in a changing global economy.
2. Improve academic outcomes for children
with disabilities by setting performance targets, promoting effective practices, and holding schools accountable for dramatic improvements.
4. Improve high school attendance and graduation rates by setting performance targets, promoting practices that remove barriers to graduation, and holding schools accountable for dramatic improvements. 5. Report student persistence and college completion results, and increase investment in programs that have been shown to remove barriers to graduation.
6. Raise the learning standards to exceed global standards to graduate all students ready for citizenship, work, and continued education. Align standards, assessments, curriculum and instruction across P-16, emphasizing transitions.
7. Strengthen instruction. Define, reduce and then eliminate the inequitable distribution of teaching talent. Require all teachers of core academic subjects to be highly qualified in the subject they are teaching by July 2007. Improve teacher retention. Focus professional development on effective practices in areas in which academic needs are greatest. Accelerate the integration of technology into teaching and learning practices in P-16 institutions. 8. Advocate for a Foundation Formula to provide State Aid that is adequate, sustainable, fair, and commensurate with the cost of education that enables students to meet the standards.
9. Strengthen the capacity of the State Education Department to support schools as they work to improve student achievement and the Department’s capacity to hold them accountable for doing so. 10. Create a P-16 student data system to drive improvements in graduation rates in high school and higher education.
Problem: Early language and literacy development begins in the first three years of life and is closely linked to a child’s earliest experiences with books and stories. Children lacking pre-literacy opportunities too often don’t become proficient readers. When they enter school, many children participate in a fragmented early childhood system. Although 80% of four-year-olds are in placements outside of the home, only one-third are served in State-funded pre-kindergarten programs. And many adults are not literate. Adults with low literacy have difficulty ensuring that their children can read, thus perpetuating the achievement gap. Actions: ■ Carry out the Regents early education policy. Key actions include:
o Define and advocate for changes in the scope and funding of early childhood programs, including decisions on a supplemental foundation formula, universal coverage for pre-K, and a mixed private and public system for pre-K. o Make scientifically-based reading strategies available to all schools and teachers.
— Team Leader, Early Childhood and Reading Initiatives
§ Total funding needed to be determined in Regents state aid proposal for 2007-08.
§ $250,000 to develop an online resource to provide scientifically based reading strategies to teachers statewide. ■ Through the USNY Cabinet on Early Education, collaborate with other children and family-oriented State agencies and community organizations to identify and help families through large-scale parent training and related services. Set targets for results.
Liz Hood — Director, Educational Television/Public Broadcasting
— Director, Library Development
§ Total of $10 million annually: $7.5 million for libraries; $2.5 million for public broadcasting (2008-09 budget request).
§ Current staff.
o Increase participation in libraries’ statewide summer reading program from 1 million to 1.5 million children. Timeframe:
o Require museums receiving State aid to provide public and educational programs at no cost to families in poverty. Timeframe:
Clifford Siegfried — Director, State Museum
Actions: ■ Set annual State targets for improvement, publish performance data and hold low-performing school districts accountable, including redirecting federal IDEA funds in low-performing schools to improve performance.
Annually — completed for 2006
— Statewide Coordinator, Special Education
§ $375,000 IDEA funds (data collection grants available now)
§ 12.5 FTEs from current staff.
— Coordinator, Special Education Policy and Professional Development
§ $3.1 million IDEA funds available for VESID assistance to schools
§ $1.7 million annually for district-to-district assistance (5-year federal IDEA grant award available 1/07)
§ 35.5 FTEs from current staffing.
§ $13.0 million IDEA funds (SETRC) and $1.5 million (RSSC). § $1.7 million annually for Big 4 districts in new PBIS funding.
§ $100,000 annually for BOCES consultant training in new funding.
§ Additional PBIS school services provided by BOCES would be supported by local funds (COSERS).
Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors providing transition services two years before exiting high school – 36 FTE’s for an additional 2000 students with disabilities Model Transition Programs with NYC DOE and school districts - $6 million for 400 additional students with disabilities
Summer employment - $750,000 for an additional 250 students with disabilities 3. Improve academic outcomes for English Language Learners by setting performance targets, promoting effective practices, and holding schools accountable for dramatic improvements.
Problem: While there has been significant improvement in the performance of English Language Learners since 1999, a large gap remains and results are unacceptably low. 75% of Hispanic students scored at Levels 3 and 4 on the 2005 elementary level mathematics test and 35% of Hispanic students scored at Levels 3 and 4 at the middle level. English language learners are more likely to need an additional year of schooling to meet high school graduation requirements. Even after five years, fewer than half of English language learners have graduated. Literacy is an issue for adults as well. Approximately 28% of New Yorkers speak a language other than English at home. Of these residents, 36% speak English less than “very well.” Actions: ■ Set performance targets. Provide technical assistance to low performing schools through Department staff and existing regional networks. Publish results, and hold schools accountable for making Adequate Yearly Progress. Require those that do not meet targets to plan for improvement. If progress is not sufficient, require schools to modify curriculum, redirect or eliminate funds, and replace educational personnel. Timeframe:
Pedro Ruiz — Coordinator, Bilingual Education and Foreign Language Studies
— Team Leader, Information and Reporting Services
§ Existing resources for publishing data.
§ 5.0 FTEs (3 professional and 2 support staff) for accountability and assistance (included in 2007-08 budget request).
Existing resources for: § Bilingual/ESL Teacher Institutes ($5,000-$10,000 per Institute)
§ Bilingual/ESL Education Teacher Leadership Academy (Est. $650,000/year)
§ Intensive Teacher Institutes to help teachers with certification requirements (Est. $1 million/year)
§ $650,000 from existing resources for each of 5 years
§ Leadership Academy for Administrators (Est. $350,000)
§ Bilingual Education Technical Assistance Centers (BETACs) will receive about $6.7 million for the 2006-07 school year and provide professional development on best practices, including standards-based literacy and content area instruction, and assessments.
■ Expand public library services to 500,000 additional English Language Learners in the State’s 1,100 public library buildings, including library materials in multiple languages, English language classes, programs to help parents with children’s early literacy and homework, job information, and public access computers. Build on successful models in Queens, Hempstead, Glens Falls, and Westchester County. Timeframe:
Problem: Since higher standards were adopted in 1996, the number of high school graduates each year has increased. However, only 64% of students who entered 9th grade in 2001 graduated in four years; 18% were still enrolled and 11% had dropped out. Rates for Black and Hispanic students were below 45%. Data show that graduation rates are closely tied to attendance rates. As attendance declines below 95%, graduation rates decline significantly. And both attendance and graduation rates decline with poverty. New York’s current graduation rate standard is only 55%, one of the lowest in the nation. Schools need to focus on the least served students, such as Black males, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities. Actions: ■ Set a State standard of 90% for graduation rates, publish four- and five-year graduation rates by school, and specify a schedule of improvement targets for schools to close the gap between their graduation rate and State standard. Set targets now for the students who entered 9th grade in 2004 and will graduate in 2008. This action is especially important to ensure that more schools intervene to help the most underserved students, such as Black males, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities.
2007-08 (Depends on Regents action)
Ira Schwartz — Coordinator, Accountability, Policy and Administration
— Executive Director, Regional School Improvement and Community Services
— Team Leader, New York City School Improvement
■ Benchmark the
knowledge and strategies that link high school and college experiences in highly effective programs such as the Liberty Partnerships Program and the Science and Technology Entry Program, advocate for additional resources to reach more students, and promote good practices statewide to improve high school and college graduation rates among low income students.
Stanley Hansen — Executive Coordinator, K-16 Initiatives and Access Programs
§ Resources available now to benchmark and identify good practices.
§ Additional $7.0 million to provide technical assistance to schools that replicate these models.
§ 1 additional FTE (included in 2007-08 budget request).
Potential linkages and strategies for reaching out to elementary, middle and high school students now under development; collaborative initiatives between the professions community and schools beginning in early 2007 and ongoing Staff Lead:
Actions: ■ Publish
freshman to sophomore student persistence and graduation rates of associate and baccalaureate programs in New York State. Analyze by sector, proportion of under-represented students, and other key criteria. Draw comparisons to national averages and to states with similar demographics. Timeframe:
Joseph Frey — Assistant Commissioner for Quality Assurance
§ $34.0 million to serve approximately 20,000 additional students.
§ 2 additional FTEs (in 2008-09 budget request) to serve additional students and administer expanded programs.
■ Monitor high-risk institutions and take action when standards are not met. Timeframe:
Implementation is underway, but will be limited until requested resources are in place Staff Lead:
§ An additional $30,000 annually to support academic teams in the field.
§ 3 additional FTEs (included in 2007-08 budget request).
■ Require colleges and universities to provide prospective students with accurate information on the institution, job placement, and/or transfer opportunities before they enroll.
Actions: ■ Adopt a schedule and process to raise the student learning standards, using expert panels. The schedule will address standards in science, U.S. and global history and geography, English and other languages, and pre-kindergarten. Benchmark the standards of other states and nations to match the demands of citizenship, higher education, and work. Align standards, assessment, curriculum, and instruction from P-12 and between high school and college. Timeframe:
Joseph Frey — Assistant Commissioner for Quality Assurance.
§ $1.35 million in new resources for the renewal of standards in each of 9 standards subject areas, one or two at a time, with an average of $150,000 per area.
§ $500,000 for the development of each revised Regents exam (may need to revise as many as 16 exams), with normal operational costs thereafter. If extensive revisions are needed to 16 exams, it could cost $8 million in new resources.
— Assistant Commissioner, State Archives and Record Administration
7. Strengthen instruction. Define, reduce, and then eliminate the inequitable distribution of teaching talent. Require all teachers of core academic subjects to be highly qualified in the subject they are teaching by July 2007. Improve teacher retention. Focus professional development on effective practices in areas in which academic needs are greatest. Accelerate the integration of technology into teaching and learning practices in P-16 institutions.
Actions: ■ Ensure all students are taught by qualified, certified teachers. o Require all teachers in core academic subjects to be certified in the subject they are teaching by July 2007. o Report the percentage of low income and minority students, as compared to other students, who are assigned unqualified, out-of-field, and inexperienced teachers in core courses.[5]
§ Resources available now to initiate.
§ Additional $1.5 million and 1 FTE to upgrade TEACH system.
o Expand the Teachers of Tomorrow Program and the Teacher Opportunity Corps to provide incentives to an additional 7,500 qualified teachers to teach in school districts with shortages and to provide an additional 1,200 teachers with training, professional development, and mentoring. o Foster new alternate teacher education programs where they are most needed and support the development and expansion of innovative programs that link P-12, higher education, business, community organizations, and other USNY partners.
Jean Stevens – Interim Deputy Commissioner for Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education Resources:
§ Resources available now to publish teacher supply and demand data and revise the teacher certification structure.
§ Grant proposal under development for Planting the Seed, a multimedia initiative to encourage middle and high school students to pursue careers in teaching and the licensed professions.
§ $560,000 annually for an additional team of 8 evaluators and clerical staff in Office of Teacher Certification will handle added volume from these actions and ensure qualified teachers are certified promptly (Ability to hire additional staff will depend on the Office of Teaching generating sufficient revenue.)
§ Teachers for Tomorrow: 2 FTEs and $25.0 million annually to provide incentives to 7,500 additional teachers (additional staff would depend on increase in program funding).
§ Teacher Opportunity Corps: 1 FTE and $2.0 million annually to serve 1,200 additional participants (additional staff would depend on increase in program funding).
o Review requirements for teacher preparation based on areas of greatest academic need. Work with colleges and universities to establish a schedule for strengthening the content of teacher education programs so that all new teachers have necessary knowledge and skills in four priority areas – literacy, mathematics, teaching students with disabilities, and teaching English Language Learners. Evaluate and incorporate recognized effective practices in teacher education programs as needed. o Partner with the New York Comprehensive Center to ensure faculty in college teacher education programs prepare all prospective teachers to use scientifically based reading instruction in the classroom.
§ Additional 3 FTEs (included in 2007-08 budget request and dedicated to literacy, math, students with disabilities; ELL) to work with colleges to strengthen the content of their teacher education programs in these four priority areas. § Funding to the New York Comprehensive Center already provided by the U.S. Department of Education to support states in carrying out NCLB and strengthening teacher quality.
§ Additional 3 FTEs to monitor, review professional development plans of school districts (2008-09 budget request).
§ Additional 3 FTEs to focus on academic and instructional technology (already included in 2007-08 budget request.
Actions: ■ Advocate with the Executive and Legislature for a foundation formula that is adequate, sustainable, fair and commensurate with the cost of educational programs that enable students to meet the standards. The Regents have estimated that the total additional amount in foundation aid needed will be about $6 billion.
Charles Szuberla — Coordinator, School Operations and Management Services
— Director, Education Finance
Actions: ■ Advocate for the Regents 2007-08 budget proposal for additional staff to enhance our ability to help schools strengthen instruction and fiscal management, monitor and hold schools accountable for results, and prevent fraud, waste and abuse of school resources.[7] With these resources, the Department will:
o Benchmark effective actions to improve results in middle and high school. o Develop an early warning system for local school districts to better understand their financial status and prevent fiscal distress.
— March 2010
Diana Hinchcliff — Director, Governmental Relations
§ Fiscal distress early warning system
§ State Aid Management System
§ Support to implement internal controls in fiscally distressed districts
§ Academic intervention teams
§ Program monitoring
(school improvement/special education assistance)
§ Auditing (fiscal/data integrity)
■ Benchmark existing P-16 data systems in other states. ■ Engage all the partners in K-12 and in SUNY and CUNY. Define the system requirements in terms of expected outcomes, content (the data elements), personnel, and technology. Establish a schedule to construct the system. ■ Begin an initial project with SUNY and CUNY to identify, collect, integrate, and report on pertinent data to meet mutual goals. Create a fully integrated system for public schools, colleges, and universities. Timeframe:
§ $10.3 million of new funding. § Additional 11 FTEs, 8 in technology, 3 in higher education (2008-08 funding).
Problem: The Board of Regents has acknowledged there should be action through state and local partnerships to resolve health and mental health barriers to achievement. One child in four is at risk of failure in school because of social, emotional, health, or other disabling condition. One in ten children in this state suffers from mental illness, yet in any given year only 20% of these children receive mental health services. Actions: ■ Establish an interagency health and mental health council to (1) create a vision and framework for an integrated education, health and mental health collaboration focusing on high need schools, and (2) set goals, annual measurable targets, and actions to achieve them. Timeframe:
■ Develop guidelines that incorporate social and emotional development into elementary and secondary school programs. Timeframe:
Actions: ■ Benchmark the best of the 30 states that currently have P-16 strategies and councils. Benchmark also the nations with the highest performance on international assessments, and highest high school and college completion rates.
§ $200,000 in new funding
§ 2 new FTEs ■ Regents approve the annual charge to the Council and receive quarterly reports on Council recommendations.
Problem: In an independent evaluation of New York’s regional network strategy, the Education Alliance at Brown University said, “New York currently does not display the characteristics of a fully coherent system of support, as the alignment is incomplete and there is incomplete evidence of shared understanding of school improvement processes/approaches within and across levels of the system.” We need a regional system that leverages the resources and expertise of multiple State-funded networks to provide support, technical assistance, and professional development to low performing schools and school districts. We need better cooperation among all regional network organizations to make effective use of all resources. The effectiveness of the current network strategy needs to be evaluated to determine if its purposes are being met and to engage more USNY partners. Actions: ■ Evaluate the effectiveness of current technical assistance and professional development activities provided through the regional networks and adjust their responsibilities as needed. Establish policy for the regional education networks in helping to close the achievement gap. Identify resources and the roles of the participants in the regional network strategy in implementing the P-16 strategy. Timeframe:
Sandra Norfleet — Team Leader, New York City School Improvement
James DeLorenzo — Statewide Coordinator, Special Education
§ Leadership Academy project on “Next Generation Regional Network Strategy” is using current staff.
§ Additional 24 FTEs for school improvement in New York City and across the State (included in the 2007-08 budget request).
Note: Contracts for participants in the regional network strategy will expire at the end of the 2007-08 school year and will be adjusted based on their effectiveness in implementing the P-16 strategy for closing the achievement gap. For 2006-07, resources targeted for the centers are:
Statewide and Regional Student Support Services Center/Statewide School Health Services Center/New York State Center for School Safety 4,420,212
Special Education Training and Resource Centers 13,000,000
[1] American Library Association research shows significant improvement in child literacy when parents use the 6 basic pre-reading skills with their preschool children. The Pennsylvania State Library’s statewide program showed significant improvement in success by local librarians in training parents in these skills. [2] Boyd, D., Grossman, P., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., Wyckoff, J. How Changes in Entry Requirements Alter the Teacher Workforce and Affect Student Achievement, 2006, www.teacherpolicyresearch.org
[3] Lankford, H., Wyckoff, J., Papa, F. The Labor Market for Public School Teachers: A Descriptive Analysis of New York State’s Teacher Workforce, October 25, 2000, www.albany.edu/edfin/
Teaching Teachers: Professional Development to Improve Student Achievement. American Educational Research Association, Summer 2005, http://www.aera.net/publications/
[5] The Education Trust, “Missing the Mark: An Education Trust Analysis of Teacher-Equity Plans.” Washington, DC: The Education Trust, August, 2006.
[6] Information on strengthening capacity for higher education appears in Action #5.
[7] The Regents budget proposal is for 99 positions, 65 of which apply to this action. Other positions are included in other actions in this document.
*** Last update 10/20/06**