A New Compact for LearningPurpose: To realize the following objectives by the year 2000 -- all children will come to school ready to learn; all children will read, write, compute, and use the thinking skills they need to continue learning by the time they are in the fourth grade or its equivalent; at least 90 percent of all young people will earn a high school diploma by the age 21; all high school graduates will be prepared for college, work, or both; all high school graduates will demonstrate proficiency in English and another language, in mathematics, the natural sciences, and technology, in history and other social sciences, and in the arts and other humanities; all students will acquire the skills and knowledge needed for employment and effective citizenship; all students will demonstrate commitment to the core values of our democratic society and knowledge of the history and culture of the major groups which comprise American society and the world; and students of both genders and all socioeconomic and racial/ethnic backgrounds will show similar achievement on State assessment measures.
... describes a comprehensive strategy for improving public elementary, middle, and secondary education results in the 1990s. This strategy arises from our society's urgent need to do a better job preparing its youth for adult life. It is based on the simple, yet radical, principle that all children can learn. It calls for collaboration on a broader scale than we have yet managed -- by parents, educators, State and local governments, colleges, libraries, museums, social-service agencies, community groups -- to bring together our collective energies in order to raise and educate our children better.
Excerpt: For all of our schools' successes, our failures are staggering... The problem is not that the legions of dedicated people who work in our schools are limited or uncaring, nor that they are unwilling to exert themselves to serve our children. On the contrary: the schools are filled with intelligent, conscientious, even idealistic people eager to be effective. The problem is that the system they are caught in - schools as we still organize and run them, prevailing notions of curriculum and instructional method, the existing allocations of responsibility and authority - has become obsolete. For all the other changes around us, the American school today is more as it was in 1900 or 1950 than its different. And what worked in the 1900s will not work in the 2000s. Either we will make now the fundamental changes needed in the ways we raise and educate our children, or we can begin the slide into a darker and less prosperous time. We must change the system so that we may achieve the results we need. And we are running out of time: either we will make the changes that a new century and a new era require, or we will sink into mediocrity.
Date: March 1991
Program Area: Departmentwide
Parent Partnerships: Linking Families, Communities and Schools
Purpose: To strengthen the collaborative relationship among families, communities, and schools in order to prepare students for life in the twenty-first century.
Excerpt: This policy paper describes how the Regents view a partnership with parents. To bring about such partnerships will require efforts not only by the Regents, but by everyone who shares the responsibility for providing a sound, basic education which is guaranteed to New York's children in the State Constitution.
The success of parent partnerships will depend on help and understanding from the community as a whole: from employers, community service organizations, higher education, religious and cultural institutions. By working to support parental partnerships with schools, our State and its communities can ensure that this generation of children grows into the knowledgeable and capable citizens our State and nation need.
Date: July 1991
Program Area: Elementary, Middle and Secondary Education
Understanding Diversity
Purpose: To reaffirm the Regents commitment to encourage schools to have students learn more about the many peoples who comprise our nation and about the history and culture of other peoples throughout the world, and to review and revise social studies curricula within this framework.
Excerpt: For more than twenty years it has been the policy of the Board of Regents to promote the understanding of both our common democratic values and our multicultural origins, along with the development of a global perspective on our own and other societies. Now a new urgency attaches, an urgency born of changes in our population, in attitudes toward diversity, and in changing political and economic circumstances throughout the world. Recommendations have been made which would shift Regents policy toward a more extreme position (e.g., exclusive Eurocentrism or Afrocentrism). Such shifts in policy would be unwise.
Date: July 1991
Program Area: Elementary and Secondary Education
Regents 1992 Statewide Plan for Higher Education in New York State
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 Regents recognize that now and in the future it is necessary to maintain four strong, autonomous sectors if we are to meet the needs of our students and our State. Each sector makes a unique contribution to the realization of our goals: improving student access; improving student success; improving academic quality; meeting the needs of the State; and using resources effectively. We reaffirm our long-standing policy that each sector should have the necessary institutional capacity and resources to meet public demand for access to excellence in instruction and research.
Date: October 1992
Program Area: Higher and Professional Education
Supporting Young Children and Families: A Regents Policy Statement on Early Childhood
Purpose: To provide comprehensive programs and services to children and their families based on changing needs and conditions in our society.
Excerpt: The Regents policy on the early childhood years, defined as the prenatal period through age nine, responds to the current political, social, and economic climate, which calls for extensive collaboration among service providers; the changing needs of children and their families; the resources currently available to support their needs; and the research on how children learn and what they need in order to learn.
The Regents policy presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It requires a different approach to providing comprehensive programs and services to children and their families based on changing needs and conditions in our society. The policy extends beyond the classroom, requiring multiple levels of collaboration within and outside the formal education community. It requires committed, compassionate leadership and a shared vision which provides for realistic, yet innovative, approaches to achieve results. And it requires a long-term, continuous investment in children and families that remains steadfast when the political winds shift to other priorities.
Date: November 1992
Program Area: Elementary Education
Equity for Women in the 1990s
Purpose: To move forward in achieving equal opportunity for girls and women in the 1990s and beyond by establishing specific goals, indicators of progress, and a timetable for action to address the concerns raised by this reexamination of how females have fared in the educational institutions in New York State.
Excerpt: Since 1972... there have been some advances for women in educational attainment and positions of leadership. The gains, however, do not reflect the real potential that women possess or their numbers. There is evidence that bias and discrimination that hamper women in fulfilling their potential are reinforced in our school classrooms, college campuses, and workplaces. Once in careers, the reality of the "glass ceiling" halts advancement to top management not only in corporations, but in our educational institutions. The Board of Regents is committed to the development of a comprehensive plan to address the obstacles - some subtle and some blatant- that act to limit young women's access to educational and career opportunities.
Date: January 1993
Program Area: Departmentwide
Action Plan to Implement the Regents Early Childhood Policy
Purpose: To serve as a model for collaborative action with other State agencies, organized groups and individuals.
Excerpt: The Action Plan draws upon the five principles of the early childhood policy statement, which was adopted by the Regents in November 1992, to provide short and long-term recommendations and suggested activities for implementation at the local level. The Regents and the State Education Department are especially interested in receiving feedback from parents, school district personnel, staff of community-based organizations, business leaders, early childhood providers and advocates.
The Board of Regents and the State Education Department are committed to ensuring that quality comprehensive and developmentally appropriate early childhood programs and services are provided to young children and their families.
Date: February 1993
Program Area: Elementary, Middle and Secondary Education
Preparing Youth for the Workforce: An Integrated Approach
Purpose: To prepare New York's young people for the workplace, further education, and productive and satisfying lives.
Excerpt: The paper briefly reviews the need for attention to workforce preparation and the contributions which have already been made to our knowledge on the topic. It lays out the essence of an integrated approach to prepare New York's young people for the workplace, further education, and productive and satisfying lives; and it estimates the cost of initiating this approach..., in addition to the funding already identified as necessary to support the schools and implements the New Compact for Learning.
Date: March 1993
Program Area: Elementary, Middle and Secondary Education
Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities: Comprehensive Action Plan for
Reform
Purpose: To reform the vocational rehabilitation service delivery system to ensure the highest quality services to people with disabilities in New York State.
Excerpt: This Comprehensive Action Plan summarizes VESID's Plan to reform its system of service delivery. This Plan describes activities which began in 1989, under the first phase of reform, which improved the ease with which persons with disabilities access vocational rehabilitation services. The Plan then details activities planned for the second phase of reform to further improve the way in which services are provided to our consumer.
Date: April 1993
Program Area: Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities
Blueprint for Implementation of the Recommendations of the Regents Select Commission on Disability
Purpose: To identify and study the major issues in education, research and service and related to the provision of services to individuals with disabilities.
Excerpt: The enclosed final blueprint, which provides a description of how each recommendation [of the New York State Board of Regents Select Commission on Disability] will be achieved, was approved by the Board of Regents at the December 1993 meeting. We are now beginning the exciting work of implementing this plan of action.
Date: December 1993
Program Area: Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities