City and State Education Summit: Preparing for the Challenges of the Next School Year
City and State Education Summit: Preparing for the Challenges of the Next School Year
City and State is a daily online site that summarizes and links to City and State political news and sponsors the Education Summit, this year State Commissioner Rosa as keynote speaker and panels including UFT president Michael Mulgrew and Dan Weisberg, Deputy Chancellor with hundreds in the audience, a wide range, staffers, not-for-profits, all shades of advocates, at the stunning Jewish Museum at the Battery, a mélange from inside, outside and around the world of NYS education.
In the fall of 2019 I attended the first meeting discussing Graduation Measures, a deep dive into the courses, credits and assessments required for high school graduation, almost five years later we are approaching a conclusion. See the 48 page Report here https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/grad-measures/nys-blue-ribbon-commission-graduation-measures-report.pdf
Commissioner Betty Rosa, the keynote speaker introduced Chancellor Lester Young and Vice Chancellor Judy Chin, the leaders of the 17-member Board of Regents, and, discussed,
The Blue Ribbon on Graduation Measures document featuring a “Picture of a Graduate,” and asks: How should students demonstrate knowledge? How do we create multiple measures of achievement? Should we redefine credits, only offer one diploma w/ different “seals,” additionally create a media literacy toolkit, move financial literacy to earlier grades, improve math literacy, build a data storehouse …(40 states already have one) and improve education for incarcerated youth program to post incarceration transition. And, the Commissioner acknowledged, “Sometimes politics gets in the way …”
Panel 1: Current Status of Education in New York
Shelly Mayer, Chair of the Senate Education Committee addressed the “elephant in the room,” changing the Foundation Aid formula, including “weighting,” the tax cap, wealth measures, migrants. The Rockefeller Foundation just concluded public hearings and will provide a report, step one of a topic that will dominate the legislative session.
Julie Marlette, a longtime education policy analyst reminded us that the Foundation Aid has a hundred moving pieces and could easily devolve into regional battles.
UFT President Mulgrew: Foundation Aid is extremely complex and inadequate, how do you meld needs of small school districts, large cities, wealth, how do we avoid an adversarial battle? How do you create a thoughtful conversation? And, acknowledge schools have become the de facto safety net for families.
Dan Weisberg, the NYC Deputy Chancellor agreed, the Foundation Aid can lead to warfare, New York City has adjusted the per school formula, the State budget must add dollars and focus on students w/ disabilities, 200,000 students in New York City, especially autism, who have been chronically underserved.
Weisberg and Mulgrew agreed, the new Reading/Math initiatives are working, a common research based playbook. Mulgrew reminded us, you can’t keep changing with the wind, pre-service is inadequate, we face teacher cynicism, struggling to adequately train, Mulgrew hopeful…Weisberg commends Mulgrew.
A State Ed deputy commissioner came back to the challenges of the Blue Ribbon Report, rethink all assessments, there are other than regents assessments, delink exams from demonstrating knowledge, build rubrics, embedding rigor, all challenges.
Mulgrew warned: don't lower assessments and urged the State to identify other areas of assessments aside from Regents- as an example the current industry aligned CTE assessments.
Mulgrew reminded us: everything depends on Election Day in November, we could be struggling for the survival of public education.
Panel 2: Struggles Facing Higher Education
While the last few budgets have attempted to remedy past inadequate budgets, SUNY and CUNY face decreasing enrollments, partially decreases in population, aligning college offerings with the real outside world and the overall resetting of the world impacted by artificial intelligence and the work force. Registration in teacher education is much lower as well as nursing. Are more online courses an answer? Reconnecting with drop outs?
New York State primarily funds schools by property taxes, with enormous differences between low and high tax districts. The State portion of school aid attempts to address the property tax disparities, the goal of the Foundation Aid formula attempts to address the inadequacies, and one section, “regardless of loss of student population, no district shall receive fewer dollars than the previous year,” Governor Hochul wants to phase out the “save harmless” provision. Can you create a Foundation Aid formula that satisfies all school districts without significant additional education dollars, which the governor has already indicated are not available? The governor determines the size of the budget, the legislature and the governor the allocation of the available dollars.
City and State provided a venue to begin the “discussions” which can easily deteriorate into regional battles.
A morning well spent, listening to the “players” and renewing discussions with the wide range of school engaged folks, at a stunning site.