Policy Update: New York: A Closer Look at Teachers

Vital Statistics
706	Public school districts
4,166	Public schools
2.8 million	K-12 enrollment
43.6%	Minority students
25%	Children in poverty
12.9%	Students with disabilities
$25.2 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

In a reform package that affected nearly every stage of teachers' professional lives, the state board of regents pieced together a jigsaw puzzle of interlocking policies to revamp teacher training, certification, and professional development. The goal is to improve the odds that the state's more than 200,000 teachers have what it takes to satisfy rising expectations in the classroom.

The new elementary and middle school assessments reflect content standards adopted in 1996 for all major subject areas. And the tougher high school exams are part of a plan to require all students, except some in special education, to pass a battery of college-preparatory "regents' exams" in order to graduate, starting with the Class of 2005.

To help give youngsters a jump on those more stringent standards, last fall the state kicked off the first leg of a multiyear plan to phase in universal, publicly funded preschool for all 4-year-olds statewide by 2001-02. Local districts also saw a boost of nearly $850 million in overall state aid, an increase of 7.7 percent.

But with those extra resources, state leaders strived to deliver the message to local school officials that they will be held accountable for results.

"I've told them over and over again that there is a test with one question that they will face this year," says Commissioner of Education Richard P. Mills, "and that is, 'What did you get for the money?' "

Another program that underwent a tuneup dur-ing the past year was the state's process for identifying and intervening in chronically low-performing schools, known as Schools Under Registration Review. A prime objective of the changes was to make the 9-year-old accountability system more effective in helping turn schools around. The plan calls for improving the external school reviews conducted under the program.

Related to those revisions were modifications in the school-by-school report cards the state launched in 1997. Starting this school year, the reports will feature a "school accountability page" aimed at informing the public about the student-performance data that the state uses in its monitoring program.

New York's method of holding teacher-preparation programs accountable will also change under the teaching plan the regents adopted last summer. Among the changes is a requirement that 80 percent of each program's graduates pass the state's teacher-licensing exams. If programs fall short of that goal, they risk eventual revocation of their authority to operate in the state.

All teacher education programs, public and private, will also have to become accredited by 2004 under the plan. Initially, the board members considered requiring all such programs to win the seal of approval from a national accrediting association. Following an outcry from some college officials, however, the regents instead directed that programs win accreditation either from a national organization or a system to be developed by the state.

Next in line for a tuneup was the teacher-credentialing system. The regents added, among other provisions, a requirement that entry-level teachers earn a master's degree within two years.

Tackling the problem of unlicensed teachers, the regents set a deadline of 2003 for the state to stop issuing the kind of temporary licenses that are held by an estimated 9,000 teachers in New York City. And as of this coming fall, schools that are on the SURR watch list will no longer be allowed to hire teachers who hold such emergency certificates.

For teachers further along in their careers, the plan mandates that those hired after September 2000 participate in 175 hours of professional development every five years to remain in good standing. Teachers hired before that date will not be affected.

Following protests from teachers' unions, the board scuttled a proposal that would have required all teachers to undergo a job evaluation every five years by a team including master teachers from outside the school. Instead, the regents ordered changes designed to add rigor to the annual job evaluations that teachers receive from local administrators. In addition, they required that beginning in 2001 school report cards list performance-related information about teachers, such as the number who have been rated unsatisfactory.

As a sequel to the teaching reforms, Commissioner Mills has launched an initiative focusing on leadership, both among administrators and local school board members. If schools are to be accountable for learning, he argues, strides in this arena are imperative. "If you have bad reading scores, it's not sufficient to say we need another messiah to fix the problem," he says. "Accountability requires sustained leadership."