Integration and the Schools
Over the years, the Regents have maintained a steady and firm pressure to move the State's educational
system closer to unified policy objectives. Two prominent examples of Regents policy initiatives in the last 25 years
are the Regents Action Plan to Improve Elementary and Secondary Education Results in New York and A
New Compact for Learning. In the 1980s, the Regents Action Plan set new standards of achievement and
excellence that were replicated by other states. Building on this success, the Regents began to focus on the need of
students to develop the knowledge and skills to meet the challenges of postsecondary education and the work place
of the twenty-first century. As a result, in 1991, the Regents adopted A New Compact for Learning which focuses
the energies of the State's educational system on equipping students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed
for productive adult lives.In addition to those key policy frameworks, the Regents continue to forge policy directions for education that encompass the entire University of the State of New York. Following are major policy statements of the Board of Regents approved during the last 25 years (1968-1993):
Integration and the Schools
Purpose: To reaffirm the Regents determination to see that segregation in education is eliminated, and the conditions under which each individual may grow in self-respect, respect for others, and in the attainment of his/her full potential, shall exist everywhere in the State.
Excerpt: Fundamental in all efforts to achieve the objective of an integrated society is the principle of equality of educational opportunity. A manifestation of the vitality of our American democratic society and essential to its continuation, this basic principle, deeply embedded in education law and policy, has been continually reaffirmed in both its practical advantages and its moral justice by new developments and needs of changing times.
The Regents reaffirm their dedication to this principle and reemphasize the obligation of the entire educational system to maintain those policies and practices that will make equality of educational opportunity a reality for all our children and youth.
Date: January 1968
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education, Higher Education
The Regents Statewide Plan for the Expansion and Development of Higher Education
Purpose: To define and differentiate the missions and objectives of higher education; identify the needs, problems, societal conditions and interests of the citizens of the State of New York to which programs of higher education may most appropriately be addressed; define and differentiate the missions and objectives of institutions of higher education; develop programs to meet the needs, solve the problems, affect the conditions and respond to the public's interests by setting goals, describing the time needed to meet those goals, identifying the resources needed to achieve the goals, and establishing priorities; enable all participants in the planning process, representatives of the people and the citizens themselves to evaluate the needs, objectives, program proposals, priorities, costs and results of higher education; optimize the use of resources; and evaluate the program effectiveness.
Excerpt: The future development of higher education in New York State, to be relevant to the needs of both society and the individual, must encompass three major objectives - the provision of places for ever increasing numbers; the provision of the variety of opportunities necessary to honor the commitment to the development of individual potential; and the provision of the high standards that will ensure quality in all programs and institutions.
With the 1968 Statewide Plan, the Regents seek to continue their coordinating role to the end that the efforts and resources of all the institutions in the State will be used to the best advantage to attain these objectives.
Date: March 1969
Program Area: Higher and Professional Education
Continuing Education
Purpose: To provide adequate opportunities for continuing education for adults in all places of their lives -- family, public and cultural.
Excerpt: New York State is committed to the development of equal opportunity for all and to the position that education is the prime method for guaranteeing that opportunity. Every possible means for extending educational opportunity to all who might benefit must be developed. Despite the existence, at all levels, of sizable numbers of institutions which provide rewarding environments for those who would pursue usual educational patterns, there remain large segments of our population who have missed the patterns - many who lack even elementary or secondary education. Those adults previously bypassed by the educational system must not remain undereducated. Those who want to take advantage of new opportunities for education must be accommodated. The provision of that opportunity is the mission of continuing education.
This statement of policy by the Regents, the fourth in a series, reaffirms their commitment to the education of all persons, no matter what their age. The Regents here present their priorities and describe a 10-year program directed to the most urgent needs.
Date: May 1969
Program Area: Higher Education
Integration and the Schools
Purpose: To eliminate racial segregation in the schools -- a restatement of the Regents 1968 position.
Excerpt: Events and trends since January 1968, when our statement entitled Integration and the Schools was released, lead us to believe that we should again address ourselves to this critical issue. We have carefully reviewed experience in the last year and a half, and at this time comment on this experience and restate our beliefs.
The efforts of the State of New York to eliminate segregation and to speed integration must be increased. We pledge our efforts and those of the State Education Department to greater vigilance in this area.
Date: December 1969
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Open Admission to Post-Secondary Education
Purpose: To set a statewide policy on admissions to undergraduate study, and to urge all postsecondary institutions to reassess their admissions practices in light of the policy.
Excerpt: City University has now petitioned the Regents to approve a bold approach to higher education in New York City - that of providing enlarged educational opportunities to a substantially increased number of high school students, in New York City, through the process of open admissions.
The Regents, by resolution, are approving the requested amendment of the 1969 First Revision of the 1968 Master Plan for the City University.
Date: December 1969
Program Area: Higher and Professional Education
International Dimensions of Education
Purpose: To recognize that human society is confronted by major and cataclysmic changes, and that the educational process should help prepare individuals to meet these changes.
Date: January 1970
Excerpt: It is necessary that the citizen of tomorrow be informed about the parts of the world beyond the borders of his own country because what happens in those countries is bound to affect him and his country. Further, societies and traditions other than our own are worthy of our attention in their own right because of the quality and richness of human experience which they represent.
The Regents believe that increased emphasis should be placed on the international dimensions of education. Underlying the support of such emphasis is recognition that human society is confronted by major and cataclysmic changes and that the educational process should help prepare men to meet these changes.
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education, Higher Education
Humanities and Arts in Elementary and Secondary Education
Purpose: To stress education which emphasizes the importance of human beings, their nature and place in the universe; teaches that all persons have dignity and worth; studies accomplishments of men and women, especially those that tend to enrich the quality of life; and searches for the means to repair the environment, to satisfy one's emotions and aspirations, and develop a personal lifestyle.
Excerpt: The Regents are deeply and increasingly concerned that more emphasis be placed by the schools of the State on those aspects of learning and of human experiences that promote a sense of community and that give life ultimate meaning and delight.
We believe that a special opportunity exists in the humanities and the arts to provide the leadership needed for a true educational renaissance in our school system. We believe especially that literature, drama, music, the dance, and the visual arts can help young people to relate to one another, and to the universe, with a new sense of excitement, concern, and reverence.
We believe that the time has come to strengthen support of the humanities and arts in education.
Date: March 1970
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Vocational Rehabilitation
Purpose: To establish or to restore the effective participation of handicapped persons in productive work activities.
Excerpt: The vocational rehabilitation program plays an important part in enabling handicapped individuals to achieve dignity, self-fulfillment, and productive functioning in society by reducing or removing their economic dependence on others.
The Regents reaffirm their deep belief in the important contribution of the vocational rehabilitation program in promoting the worth of the individual and the economic health of the community through restoration of the productive participation of handicapped persons in community activity. The Regents urge the cooperation of public and private organizations in advancing the growth of the vocational rehabilitation program...
Date: August 1970
Program Area: Vocational Rehabilitation
Library Service
Purpose: To provide State residents, regardless of age, convenient free access to local libraries to meet their needs; to provide user service through statewide library networks; and to develop further an integrated network of libraries in New York State.
Excerpt: Libraries are an integral part of the educational program of the State. Libraries support all phases of formal and informal education and can enrich each person's life as well as the life of our communities. The growing demand for information in every form of human endeavor to support all phases of formal education requires imaginative library programs which will provide books as well as all kinds of nonprint materials and which will more effectively organize, store, and provide ready access to knowledge.
In summary, we believe the central principle for a library program for New York State should be the further development of an integrated network of libraries, with smaller libraries drawing on larger ones, and libraries with specialized functions made accessible through organized patterns of referral. Only through such coordinated services can the people of the State have the benefits which accrue from adequate, convenient access to sources of information, education, and cultural enrichment.
Date: October 1970
Program Area: Cultural Education
Drug Education
Purpose: To develop a drug education program which includes an intensive health teacher training program, the in-service training of present teachers, the expansion of curricular offerings, grants for local drug education projects, a college volunteer program, and school-community team training.
Excerpt: The Regents, together with the Governor, Legislature, and all citizens are deeply concerned with the problem of drug use and abuse. We are alarmed by the increase in the number of young people using drugs, in the incidence of disease, death and psychological disturbance among those who are using drugs, in the number of illegal acts associated with drug use and abuse, and in the accessibility of illegal drugs. These are manifestations of social ills for which education must assume part of the responsibility and must provide part of the solution.
The solution of the problem of youthful drug abuse includes increased efforts in law enforcement and the identification, referral, treatment, and rehabilitation of drug users.
We do feel that education can play a role in preventing youth from using harmful drugs. Emphasis on the utilization of peer influence in a constructive way is, we believe, a potential for insuring that drugs are used intelligently in the future.
Date: December 1970
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Environmental Education
Purpose: To impart to students a set of values that leads them to accept their responsibility toward their natural surroundings, and views the primary role of individuals as being participants in, rather than masters of, their natural surroundings.
Excerpt: We propose the following educational goal: That a student upon leaving the educational system has a set of values that leads him to accept his responsibility toward his natural surroundings and view the primary role of man as being a participant in rather than a master of his natural surroundings.
Our challenge now is to control our own actions so that we live as a part of an overall natural environment. The program proposed here will succeed only if we change our values in such a way that we view man's role as a participant in rather than a master of his natural surrounding. The environmental education program will be a success only if this change of values influences practical decision making in both private and public sectors toward prevention of environmental deterioration.
Date: March 1971
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Occupational Education
Purpose: To guarantee an adequately prepared work force, and productive employment for all who are able and willing to work, requiring a comprehensive system of occupational programs and services.
Excerpt: To guarantee an adequately prepared work force, and productive employment for all who are able and willing to work, New York State will need to fashion a comprehensive system of occupational education programs and services. Such a system will be comprehensive in that it will serve the occupational education needs of all persons in the State, including persons attending nonpublic schools, and in that it will utilize all available resources for occupational education, in a coordinated, nonduplicative, and cost-effective manner.
Date: May 1971
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Reading
Purpose: To enable schools to eliminate functional illiteracy among thousands of elementary and secondary students, and to attain the ultimate goal of reading education -- which is people who can and do use reading for the achievement of educational and occupational goals, the cultivation of the imagination and the enjoyment of leisure time, and full participation in social and civic life.
Excerpt: The ability to read is absolutely essential to complete fulfillment of human potential in today's increasingly complex society. While deficiencies in any major subject area, for example in mathematics, can be crippling factors, the inability to read is deadly. Without this skill the student cannot effectively compete in other areas of scholastic endeavor, much less hope for success in postschool employment and life situations. It is an unquestioned requisite for the good or even reasonable life, and no child or adult should be denied such capacity.
Date: July 1971
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Financing Higher Education Needs in the Decade Ahead
Purpose: To propose a new system of financing higher education in New York State to permit the continued orderly development of higher educational opportunities.
Excerpt: The Regents believe that the present system of financing higher education, which relies heavily on public subsidy and which grew ad hoc during a period of transition in the 1960s, is inconsistent both with the present and prospective needs of both public and private higher education.
The Regents propose a new system of financing not to "save" any sector of higher education in this State, but rather to permit the continued orderly development of higher educational opportunities.
Date: January 1972
Program Area: Higher Education
Equal Opportunity for Women
Purpose: To eliminate discriminatory practices in the State's educational system through recruitment and promotion of women in professional and managerial positions in education; to end sexual stereotyping in the elementary and secondary schools through changes in instructional material, in-service training of educational personnel, and to assure that all courses of study are available to girls and boys; and to provide equal opportunity for women as students and faculty members in higher education.
Excerpt: New York State is committed to providing equal educational and employment opportunities for women. Despite some progress in insuring women equal protection under State and Federal laws, there is still deep-rooted discrimination against women in our society.
In this paper the Regents propose affirmative action to provide equal opportunity for women and to eliminate discriminatory practices in our educational system.
Educational institutions must take the lead in providing equal opportunity for women.
Date: April 1972
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education, Higher Education
Minority Access to and Participation in Postsecondary Education
Purpose: To encourage colleges and universities to take applications for admission from minority groups, and take affirmative action to admit such students and to appoint faculty members and professional staff from members of minority groups.
Excerpt: The Regents believe that colleges and universities should encourage applications for admission from minority groups, and take affirmative action to admit such students, and should take affirmative action to appoint faculty members and professional staff from members of minority groups.
The Regents believe, further, that policies or practices which encourage or permit the segregation and/or separation of students within an institution on the basis of race, ethnic background, religion, economic status, and national origin, are incompatible with the goals, objectives, and best practices of post-secondary education.
The Regents fully expect to see measurable, steady progress toward the goals of integration and equal opportunity of access to all New York post-secondary institutions. These goals should be achieved within the decade of the 1970s.
Date: May 1972
Program Area: Higher Education
Bilingual Education
Purpose: To seek effective solutions to the problems faced by non-English-speaking children in the schools of New York State, even if major changes must be made in our educational system; and to provide programs which capitalize on the strengths of non-English-speaking children and their families.
Excerpt: The Board of Regents is committed to seeking effective solutions to the problems faced by non- English-speaking children in the schools of New York State, even if major changes must be made in our educational system. The Board of Regents further believes that it is the duty of the school to provide programs which capitalize on the strengths of the non-English-speaking child and his family. The Regents believe, finally, that any less commitment to the needs of the non-English-speaking child will be inherently discriminatory and ultimately ineffective.
The Regents reaffirm their dedication to the principle that all children, without regard to differences in economic, religious, racial, or national backgrounds, be provided the opportunity for equal education. Our schools must teach what our society must ultimately come to believe: that cultural-linguistic diversity is not to be feared or suspected, but rather valued and enjoyed; that culturally and linguistically different people share the equal rights of freedom and opportunity fundamental to democracy.
Date: August 1972
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Instructional Technology
Purpose: To increase learning opportunities and effectiveness, improvement in the quality and control of educational opportunity, and a greater volume of learning for dollars invested.
Excerpt: Today the education system that produced the individual skills and talents that have made American technology first in the world is itself troubled. The changing characteristics of society, the rising expectations of greater abundance and security, and the realization that only through education can these expectations be achieved have created a dilemma of major proportions. The Regents are convinced that, with the help of technology, education of improved quality can be more economically produced to meet the demand.
The Regents acknowledge the present strengths and weaknesses of instructional technology and are convinced that potential contributions of technology to the improvement of the quality and cost of education merit substantial financial support for further development. The Regents recommend increased effort to research, develop, demonstrate, disseminate, and evaluate the uses of new media and technology as part of the instructional process.
The Regents recommend broad participation in the further development and refinement of technological systems. Further, the Regents recommend and support the development of new strategies and organizational patterns which will promote closer cooperation among educational institutions, business and industry, and government for the purpose of improving the quality, quantity, and cost of instructional technology materials.
Date: November 1972
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Education Beyond High School: The Regents Statewide Plan for the Development of Post-secondary
Education, 1972
Purpose: To define and differentiate the missions and objectives of higher education; identify the needs, problems, societal conditions and interests of the citizens of the State of New York to which programs of higher education may most appropriately be addressed; define and differentiate the missions and objectives of institutions of higher education; develop programs to meet the needs, solve the problems, affect the conditions and respond to the public's interests by setting goals, describing the time needed to meet those goals, identifying the resources needed to achieve the goals, and establishing priorities; enable all participants in the planning process, representatives of the people and the citizens themselves to evaluate the needs, objectives, program proposals, priorities, costs and results of higher education; optimize the use of resources; and evaluate the program effectiveness.
Excerpt: The magnitude and increasing complexity of the higher education enterprise in New York State have intensified the need for coordinated planning as exemplified by the Regents statewide plans. Through these plans, which have been developed on a quadrennial basis since 1964, the Regents identify the problems and issues confronting education beyond high school and formulate policies and courses of action for their resolution.
The key words describing the 1972 plan are "involvement" and "utilization." Naturally the education community has been involved, but more importantly, the general public has played a key role... In terms of utilization, the plan underscores the necessity for optimal utilization of all post-secondary educational resources. It boldly endorses the concept that these resources include proprietary schools, industrial laboratories, and apprenticeship programs, as well as the traditional public and private institutions of higher education. Greater opportunities must be available to students to learn the skills, knowledges, and understandings in ways other than, and in addition to, the traditional forms of higher education. It is only through this type of endeavor that the continuing educational needs of the State may be met in an effective and prudent manner.
Date: November 1972
Program Area: Higher and Professional Education
Culture and Education
Purpose: To recognize that great collections of art, of scientific records and specimens, or of manuscripts and the research, publications and exhibitions flowing from these, constitute a major portion of our national heritage, and as such they must be nurtured and sustained in proportion to total national growth.
Excerpt: Recognizing that education and culture are intertwined and interdependent, the Regents feel a great urgency to lend their voice and support to the maintenance of what they believe to be both good and essential elements of our society - the cultural institutions of New York State. In a State as influential and complex as New York, the ranges of influence of these institutions are equally diverse, ranging from those oriented to local or specialized enrichment to those holding national or international stewardship. It is a matter of more than statewide concern.
The problem of greatest immediacy is to review the growth and use of these institutions, not simply because they exist, but because they have a vital and relevant contribution to make to the well-being of all of our citizens regardless of their origin or income. This is an effort which must involve the institutions themselves, an expanded clientele, and a diverse base of financial and moral support. And all this means making changes.
Date: January 1973
Program Area: Cultural Education
Meeting the Needs of Doctoral Education
Purpose: To ensure that all doctoral programs in the State, in both the public and private sectors, shall comprise an interrelated, statewide resource for doctoral education; all doctoral programs shall meet, or show clear potential for meeting, standards of high quality and demonstrated need; and all qualified New York students shall have equal access to doctoral education at all institutions in the State.
Excerpt: New York is committed to sustain a comprehensive, high quality system of doctoral education to meet society's needs for new knowledge, skilled manpower, and public service. The provision of equal opportunity for doctoral study to all qualified students in New York is part of the State's commitment.
The Regents recognize the advantages of a richly diverse system of doctoral education expressed through the distinctiveness and integrity of individual institutions. They also recognize the advantages of coordination and cooperation among institutions to mutually enrich and strengthen their programs through the most effective use of all State's resources.
Date: August 1973
Program Area: Higher Education
The Education of Children with Handicapping Conditions
Purpose: To urge that the education of handicapped children requires a much more substantial commitment and investment by society than is now the case if they are to receive educational opportunities to which they are entitled.
Excerpt: The Regents strongly urge that the education of handicapped children requires a much more substantial commitment and investment by society than is now the case if they are to receive educational opportunities to which they are entitled. The Regents also believe that the primary and basic responsibility for such a program rests with the local school district, that it must be an integral part of public education, and that far more stringent means of monitoring the educational placement and progress of the children involved must be instituted if desired objectives are to be attained.
... the Regents call for the development of coordinated planning and action by all levels and units within the educational system of New York State. Such a cooperation effort would make possible the design of programs and systems that would enable all children with handicapping conditions to realize their optimal capabilities. Toward this end, an ongoing organizational and management process needs to be established at all levels for the continuous operation and coordination of plans to accomplish these ends, and the foregoing Regents recommendations are expected to become the focus for planning by school districts, cooperative boards, nonpublic agencies, and the Education Department.
Date: November 1973
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education