Every August City and State, an online news site who delivers a summary of news and politics every morning including links to more detailed articles, sponsors an Education Summit, an education leader from the city and/or the state and a number of panels to discuss the upcoming education issues with hundreds in the audience: school and district leaders, venders, activists, organizational leaders, with time to “catch up” and smooze.
This year NYS Commissioner of Education Betty Rosa was the keynote followed by three panels including the UFT, John Liu, the chair of the NYS Education Committee of the Senate and leaders of a number of educational organizations. You know the opening day of school cannot be far away.
Oddly, no one from the leadership of the NYC Department of Education was present. (Maybe all at the wedding!).
City and State, Chalkbeat and the NY Daily News reported on the event here, here and here.
Unfortunately “if it bleeds, it leads,” dominates the news cycle.
City and State, the most accurate report entitled their article, “City & State’s Education in New York Summit brings light to resource disparities across the state,” Chalkbeat, a more controversial lede, “Betty Rosa, New York’s top education official, raises equity concerns over class size law,” and the NY Daily News, “Commissioner Betty Rosa Warns of Strain from Class Size Law.”
In my view the essence of Commissioner Rosa’s presentation was to emphasize the necessity to work together, all the advocates, the schools/school districts, parents, unions, a plea to put aside differences and find commonalities.
The NYC Mayor appoints about 300 commissioners, deputy commissioners, advisors who run the city, with an elected 51 member City Council with oversight responsibility, meaning they can hold hearings, aside from approving the budget the Council has limited, very limited authority. The Mayor runs the city.
The Governor appoints agency heads, judges and advisors, presents and negotiates the budget with the legislature, can veto legislation and frequently uses the budgetary process to pass laws. The Governor, with the legislature, runs the state.
The 17-member Board of Regents is elected by a joint meeting of the state legislatures, “proposes” budgetary priorities; the educational budget is determined by the legislature and the governor. The Regents is a “policy board,” the 700 school districts and 4400 schools are led by elected local school boards.
Commissioner Rosa is selected by the Regents, the superintendents across the state are hired by the elected local school boards,
Is the current sharply divided educational governance structure effective in creating and implementing educational policy?
The Governor/Legislature determines education dollars, Regents/State Ed set policy and the local school boards determine how to implement the policies. Curriculum is determined locally, state policy is only guidance.
Senator Liu, one of the panelists explained, in vivid detail, the lengthy battle over school funding, the CFE lawsuits (Read summary here), in the courts for over twenty years, and the legislature, led by Senator Liu finally created a funding formula that is fair, not equitable, and it is unlikely the formula will ever be equitable because a major part of the funding is local property taxes.
While school districts have wide discretion the New York City class size law implementation is statuary (Read Class Size implementation FAQ here), New York City, in spite of Mayor Adam’s reluctance, must comply. Senator Liu spoke clearly, if the city does not comply the legislature will not provide dollars, he spoke forcefully, his comments should have been the lede.
The Regents pass policy and direct the Commissioner to research/explore/create a policy document, for example, the Early Childhood Blue Ribbon Commission Final Recommendations here and the Culturally Responsive Sustaining Frameworks, excellent documents; however, school boards can ignore.
Whether a school district decides to implement is in the domain of the elected school board, and if dollars are required, up to the state legislature.
One of the panels at the Summit discussed the impact of Artificial Intelligence, Remote Learning and ChatCPT on schools, the panel agreed: the changes will be incredibly swift and we should be discussing, and, the Department of Education is clueless and the engaged in Graduation Measures.
Perhaps Governor Hochul should consider creating an Education Reform Commission, as Cuomo did in 2012, (See full Report)
The problem our State faces in preparing every student for college and career is not isolated to education, it persists in our communities: it is a cross-government, cross-sector challenge, and the bottom line is that each part of the system has to work together in fundamentally different ways to overcome the predictable barriers to college and career readiness for our students, particularly those in high poverty communities.
While the Education Reform Commission recommendations drove education policy for a decade perhaps it is time for the current governor to appoint a commission to reinvigorate the factions impacting education policy.
Ed In The Apple 