EdVANTAGE Blog

Last week we reported on Johanna Duncan-Poitier’s plans to leave the State Education Department for a position with the State University system.

Today the Board of Regents approved the appointment of a new Deputy Commissioner to oversee the Department’s pre-K through high school operations.

He is Dr. John B. King Jr., currently Managing Director of Uncommon Schools, a non-profit charter school management organization.

Below is SED’s news release on the appointment.

Read the rest of this entry »

The State Board of regents meets in Albany next week and will continue discussions of issues concerning graduation rates.

Several of the issues the Regents will consider only indirectly affect students.  For example, for purposes of federal school accountability system requirements, the Regents will consider whether to give districts some credit for students who take more than four years to earn a high school diploma and how demanding do the the regents want to make graduation rate goals?

There is one issue to be discussed which does directly affect students.  A background paper prepared for the discussion asks, “Do the Regents wish to continue to implement the phase-out of the local diploma option for general education students?”

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s New York Daily News continues its criticisms of state assessments, reporting that recent high school graduates complain that focusing on passing Regents exams left them unprepared for college.

The article also quotes Regent Saul Cohen, who chairs the Regents task force overseeing efforts to update state learning standards, a project the Council called for in its 2007, “Education is Civil Right” agenda.

Regent Cohen said, “We could be doing a lot better” and added,”The complaints we get from higher ed people over and over [are that] most youngsters are not well-prepared for college – unless, of course, they’ve taken APs or international baccalaureates.”

State Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn said, “The Regents have committed to doing whatever it takes to meet the President’s standard for college readiness.  This will include a thorough review of the learning standards, the core curricula and the state assessments.”

Yesterday, State University Chancellor Nancy Zimpher announced that she is recommending to the SUNY Board of Trustees that Johanna Duncan-Poitier be appointed to serve as the Chancellor’s Deputy for the Education Pipeline of the State University of New York.

The SUNY news release explains,

In her position as the Chancellor’s Deputy for the Education Pipeline of SUNY, Ms. Duncan-Poitier will provide leadership and coordination for all matters involved with the educational pipeline, defined as the educational experience of all learners from early childhood through K-12, post secondary and workforce development.

During Chancellor Zimpher’s recently-concluded tour of all 64 campuses, the subject of strengthening SUNY’s role in all levels of education was a frequent topic of discussion.

During her over 20 years of service to the State Education Department, Ms. Duncan-Poitier proved to be an exceptional leader and manager.  She achieved remarkable success in leading a transformation of SED’s Office of the Professions — the office dramatically reduced its processing time while closing budget gaps, even while licensing fees (its primary revenue source) have remained frozen at levels set in the 1980s.

Since taking on her role overseeing “P-16″ education for SED (prekindergarten through college), Ms. Duncan-Poitier worked hard to understand and respond to the concerns of superintendents.

We thank her for her support as an SED leader, wish her success in her new role, and expect we will have opportunities to aid her in those efforts.

Last year, State Senator Stephen Saland convened a hearing to discuss possible changes in school calendars as a way to reduce costs, with a focus on a four-day school week.

Now a parochial school in Niagara Falls will launch an experiment with a four-day week.  Niagara Catholic High School will be closed on Mondays.  The remaining school days will be extended by more than an hour.  It seems to be the first school in the state to try a compressed calendar.

In testifying at Senator Saland’s hearing, we were mostly skeptical toward shortening the school week, reflecting the reactions of our members. Read the rest of this entry »

Late last week, we received phone calls from superintendents across the state seeking advice on how to handle calls from parents about the Obama Administration’s plans to offer a webcast speech tomorrow (Tuesday, September 8th) by the President to schoolchildren.  Some parents threatened to keep their children out of school if the speech is to be shown.

As the administration promised, the text of the speech was posted on the White House website a day early.  You can read it here.

More on on the speech and the controversy… Read the rest of this entry »

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli made it official today, announcing that the employer contribution rate for the State and Local Employees Retirement System (ERS) will rise in 2011, from 7.4 percent of payroll to 11.9 percent.

We previously reported on projected dramatic ERS cost increases continuing past next year (“State study warns ERS pension costs could triple by 2015.”)

Only about 20 percent of school employees are in ERS; most are in the Teachers Retirement System.  TRS will announce an estimated range for its contribution rate in November and will announce an estimated actual rate in February.  The official rate will be announced in July 2010, but in recent years the final rate has been the same as the estimated rate announced in February.

TRS is generally subject to the same pressures and losses affecting contribution rates as ERS.  This year, TRS has one advantage in that ERS sets its rate based on the value of its investments at the end of its fiscal year on March 31st.  The TRS fiscal year ends on June 30th and gains in equity markets over those intervening months may slightly mitigate increases in the TRS contribution rate.

Pension contributions are calculated as percentage of payroll.  Payroll is typically about half of a school district budget.  So if the contribution rates for both systems rose by an average of 4 percentage points that by itself could drive up total school spending by 2 percent, even if all other spending were frozen.

On Monday, incoming State Education Commissioner David Steiner had a column in the New York Post outlining his views of commitments that schools and policymakers need to make to schoolchildren.

On the same day we sent Dr. Steiner a letter outlining hopes that superintendents hold for his leadership of education in New York State, as well as observations on challenges he will face.

You can read it here.

The letter was developed with ample suggestions from the Council’s House of Delegates.

It includes thoughts on new standards, better assessments, closing achievement gaps, “re-imagining” how education is structured and delivered, charter schools and the State Education Department of the future.

It also cautions against “one size fits all policies,” discusses the financial pressures school leaders feel, and explains the practical perspective superintendents bring to policy-making discussions — they are the leaders who are held accountable for making state policies work at the local level.

The advent of new leadership in high state offices is an apt time for the Council and other organizations to reconsider and restate positions on core policy issues.