Editorial
EDITORIAL: New York's public education needs to get in the race
The cement is cracking around some long-standing problems with public education in New York. Changes in leadership at the State Education Department, together with new incentives from the Obama administration, are creating room for new approaches to failing schools, racial disparities, ineffective teaching and narrow types of testing.
New York seems poised for fresh progress on educating children - but there are also worrisome signs that we could still blow it.
One essential goal of a K-12 system is preparing students for college. Right now, New York is doing that poorly. Of the 214,600 students across the state who entered high school in 2002, only 48 percent finished in four years and enrolled in college - less than half. What's more telling is how many couldn't make the grade as college freshmen. Of that group of 214,600, just 37 percent went on to their sophomore year.
College administrators say students aren't up to the work. Statistics are grimmer for black and Hispanic men: 21 percent enroll as college freshmen, and just 13 percent as sophomores.
Fortunately, the state Board of Regents appears to be facing up to these facts. Chancellor Merryl Tisch, who took over the board in April, has been very candid: The Education Department had been inflating progress by New York students, and this practice should stop. Her belief was ratified last month, when the National Assessment of Educational Progress published a report showing that New York's scores on some national tests were falling, even as state tests were recording improvements.
The board has hired education Commissioner David Steiner, who started Oct. 1 and is another strong voice against the status quo. The former dean of Hunter College's School of Education, Steiner has innovative ideas about how to train teachers. He wants them to spend more time in front of a classroom, and he would make teacher certification a two-stage process. The steps needed to receive a final teaching certificate would be more challenging, weeding out weak teachers and circumventing a tenure process that has been undercut by the unions. Tisch and Steiner have scheduled a news conference Monday on teaching reforms.
The Regents are considering other measures: aligning test data to track student growth, instead of taking disconnected snapshots; lengthening and broadening tests to include science, economics and history; and intervening at struggling schools. In Roosevelt, Wyandanch and Hempstead, the Regents are considering partnerships with BOCES, Hofstra University or new charter schools.
Not coincidentally, these initiatives echo the goals of the Race to the Top grant program. Beginning last Thursday, when the final grant application was released, states are competing for $4.3 billion approved as part of the federal stimulus.
The money will go to a handful of states that have made strides in education and are poised for further innovation, said Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The four goals of the program are: college- and career-ready assessment standards; a workforce of highly effective educators; data systems that measure student growth and drive improvements in instruction; and turning around the lowest-performing schools.
The Race to the Top competition comes just as states are starving for funding, fueling even fiercer competition. Several states - California, Illinois, Ohio and more - have changed laws to lift restrictions on creating charter schools and using student test data in evaluating teachers.
But New York is different. Rather than taking measurable, public steps to follow the clear wishes of the Obama administration, New York is fudging. Richard Iannuzzi, president of the New York State United Teachers union, says he has spoken with Duncan several times - once by invitation aboard Air Force 2. He believes that the Obama administration will not object to a 2008 state law that bars the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers for tenure. The law, which was pushed by NYSUT and the United Federation of Teachers, expires in 2010.
NYSUT and the Regents also have brushed aside concerns about the state's 200-school cap on charters. But New York needs to stop thinking it has some special dispensation. Duncan signaled this last week when he visited a charter school in Harlem. In an interview, he questioned the cap, reminding New Yorkers that only states that "challenge the status quo" will receive grant money.
The Obama administration has vowed not to bend to political influence on this program, and the president should stay this tough-minded course. Watering it down into a 50-state entitlement, instead of the ground-shaking change it's meant to be, would be a defeat.
If New York is sincere about reform, it will make the needed changes rather than gamble on the same old political arm-twisting. Our new education leaders must show their mettle. Breaking apart old molds only works when better ones replace them.hN
