This program is a production of WAMC News.
From Albany, this is the Legislative Gazette,
a weekly half-hour review of New York State government and politics.
Your host is political scientist and syndicated columnist Dr. Alan Sharton, of the State University.
In this edition of the Legislative Gazette will mark the start of a new school year
by examining some major education issues.
All across New York State, the school bells of rung and classes have begun.
This fall, schools are operating for the first time under the Board of Regents' Action Plan.
We'll hear more about that later, but first, a special commission on rural resources
has included education in rural areas in its field of study.
The finding? Some unique problems.
Leslie Brokaw spoke with the chairman of the commission, State Senator Charles Cook.
First is the issue of equal access to education and opportunity for rural people.
Frequently, the small rural school just isn't able to give the same kind of course offerings
and same kind of depth education that a person would get in a suburban or urban school.
So we need to develop strategies such as telecommunication hookups, for example,
which will give the same kind of educational opportunities to these students in the rural areas
that people have if they're in a larger community.
And what other recommendations did the report make?
Another recommendation, and it relates to the quality of education.
This has to do with the difficulties that some rural schools have in attracting and keeping faculty.
There is, for example, a real problem of salary scales.
Frequently, the rural school salary scale will be $2 or $3,000 or $4,000 lower than that in the urban and suburban schools.
So that the better teachers tend to come into the rural communities perhaps for their first year,
while they're looking around for a better job.
The same is true with administrators.
And this disparity in the ability of rural schools to fund their program is creating a problem
in not only attracting quality people but in retaining them in the district.
So we think that somehow we've got to address that funding problem.
And it's not brand new, the regions and other people are looking at things like minimum salaries schedules.
If we do that in the rural districts, we're going to have to underrate some of that cost
because the real property tax issue is particularly acute in rural districts.
You have fewer people trying to underrate the cost of a school.
And if you take a finite number of people and have $3,000 or $4,000 as a salary and divide it by a small number of taxpayers,
you load a lot of additional burden on them.
That same wouldn't be true in a larger district with more taxpayers.
So somehow we have to equalize the ability of the smaller districts to pay for the better salaries to attract the better personnel.
Do you think that government goals and general policy regarding rural New York is changing?
Are we going to see a more vigorous rural development?
I think you are going to see a lot of changes mainly because of changing demographics,
almost without exception across the state of New York, in the past census,
the urban counties, lost people, rural counties, gained people.
Now this means that even aside from what you might call aggressive development,
there is a kind of a passive change to a different way, that is a change that is coming about as a matter of course.
And government at very least has to be prepared to respond to those changes that are occurring.
More than that, however, we are concerned about bringing rural New York into the mainstream economically and sociologically with the rest of the state,
things like equal educational opportunity and quality healthcare and a social climate in which we can deal with some of the severe personal problems that individuals have.
For example, we found that the suicide rate in rural areas is some 20% higher than in urban areas,
possibly because we don't have the kind of social counseling that people need out there.
These are the sorts of things that we need to address because of the growth that is occurring,
and also if we are going to have people moving out there, we need to channel the economic growth so that we can underwrite the costs that are going to be entailed in these services that are provided.
Do you see any sort of change in the perception of the rural areas by people who live primarily in urban areas?
I think that there is a gradual change mostly because there are a lot of people moving in both directions,
a lot of rural people moving into the urban areas, in vice versa, and this mobility is making all of our society.
Some of the old stereotypes that we use to carry both the rural people,
we use to have the cities and vice versa, some of those stereotypes are beginning to break down.
And so I think that the changing perception is there.
The other thing that is happening, of course, is that as people migrate from urban areas to rural areas,
they are taking with them the level of expectation of what kind of economic and social development there ought to be in a community.
And frequently we find that these are the individuals who really are bringing about the change that occurs in rural communities.
We are encouraging that kind of change, but at the same time we are defensive because there is a tendency on the part of some people when they bring about this change to do it in an urban context,
and not of course defeats the very thing that we are talking about of maintaining those rural communities.
So if somebody doesn't sort of command and help channel things, we may well find rural communities trying to do things in an urban mode and then finding out that it doesn't work.
The purpose of the Commission is to find appropriate approaches to these problems.
State Senator Charles Cook.
One of our regular contributors to the legislative Gazette is an educator as well as a Republican County Legislator.
Gerald Benjamin is a professor of political science.
He also provides us with his comments on a wide range of state political issues.
Recently an encyclopedia asked me to revise its article on the topic civil service.
After reading the old version through once, the two things I decided to do immediately, with the delete all references to civil service systems being merit systems, and to strike a sentence about them resulting in the selection of the best qualified persons for public sector jobs.
Two recent experiences confirmed that I made no mistake when I did this.
At the college where I work, the departmental secretary for the political science and history departments resigned to take a promotion.
She did this in part because her position could not be upgraded so as to reflect the work she actually did every day.
The two department chairman have interviewed the top three candidates on the civil service list, but have found none of them to be qualified to do this work.
In fact, the job is as much and administrative as a secretaryal position.
As it is now defined, if our departmental secretary's job is filled with a qualified person, it is a fortunate accident.
The result, a key position vacant at the outset of the school year with the daily work of the department disrupted.
At the Elster County Community Mental Health Agency, where I'm on the board, several of our social workers have gotten their master's degrees this spring after years of part time attendance at graduate school.
But none of them can be upgraded because the civil service exam for their promotional position was scheduled by the state just prior to their getting their degrees.
And having a master's degree was a condition for taking the exam.
Incredibly, these workers will have to wait two years for the next exam.
You can imagine what this is done to their morale and that of others in the agency.
Many other examples can be cited, enough to demonstrate that these are not isolated horror stories, but are indicative of a state and local personnel system that is in serious trouble.
Massive reform is desperately needed if we are really to select and promote qualified people on the basis of merit.
Gerald Benjamin.
As we mentioned earlier, New York schools are now operating under the conditions and programs of the Board of Regents Action Plan.
It's a sweeping program designed to upgrade the quality of public education in schools by requiring more from students and offering more in the way of incentives to teachers and school systems.
Bill Grawlty spoke about the action plan and other education issues with Deputy Education Commissioner Gerald Freeborn.
Are we off to a good start this school year?
All indications are that the school is off to a great start this is the first year of our new action plan going into effect.
And please the report that everybody has I think raised their expectations and the implementation seems to be going very smoothly.
I think up till now anyway, the action plan has been for many of the public and idea.
How are they going to see concrete changes as a result of that idea?
Probably the best way to provide a quick summary is to talk about students who are now going into the ninth grade, just to start with that.
The first time those students will be taking four years of English and that's what the existing requirement is.
They will be receiving four years of social studies and that's an increase of one year.
Really a half of year will be devoted to participation in government in a half year to economics on top of the three years that have been offered in the past.
Students will all students now be required to take two years of math and two years of science and the present requirement or the past requirement has only been one year.
For the first time, students will be required to take a combination or a full course in art and music.
Continuation of physical education requirements and health education are in place.
There are other provisions but that indicates for all students what the additional requirements will be.
If a student is pursuing a regent diploma, they will also be required to take three years of a second language.
In addition to those requirements, there are specific options that students have to fulfill in terms of what we call sequences, in other words, major areas of study.
As an example, a student might take three years of science and three years of math to meet their requirements in terms of sequences.
There are other options, occupational education, art, music and others as well.
But there are requirements that are new and expanded in terms of sequence requirements as well.
What have the local school boards have to be doing to meet with that?
Has it resulted in shifts of personnel hiring and shifting them around, things like that?
Well, it varies from school to school to school district.
Obviously, there is a need for additional teachers in second language.
There is a need for, in some cases, additional teachers in math and science as an example or art and music.
The data is handled in a variety of ways.
On average across the state, around 9% of the teachers leave the system for a variety of reasons, some retire and some move out of the area, etc.
So, on average, there is a 9% turnover of staff.
And since we have not linked in these school days, either for an elementary student, that stays at five hours or for a 9-12 student that stays at five and a half hours,
you can argue that on average, by replacing teachers that are leaving with the ones that are needed in these new areas, that you can accommodate it.
Now, that's nice to talk about in terms of a state-wide average put in a particular school district.
You might want to, well, you might not be able to use those vacancies.
You might have to create some additional positions.
Some schools, I'm told, based on my travels in the last three or four months in particular, are adding additional periods in the day to try to meet the new mandated requirements, but also to continue to offer the kinds of elective options that have been available in the past.
Again, different schools are handling that in different ways. Some are cutting down in a number of electives that are available because of the increase in terms of the mandated program for all students.
In general, do you find the districts are complying with the mandates?
We have not been out monitoring. As a matter of fact, these new mandates have only been an effect for a little over a week now.
So it takes a little time.
We as part of our high school registration process where we review a group of schools each year, we'll be checking this.
Of course, we are out monitoring programs for a variety of purposes during the year, and of course we'll be monitoring as part of those visits as well.
But it's really too early to determine whether in fact schools are following the new regulations or not.
What indications I have is that they are.
What if they weren't? Is there some leverage that can be used on them?
Oh, yes. The Commissioner in New York State has the powers of one withholding state aid. Generally, we don't like to do that because that hurts the kids.
But if there's a willful violation of Commissioner's regulation, which has the effect of law on the state or an education law, which is established by the legislature, then the Commissioner has the power to remove a superintendent and or a school board.
We don't like that. That happened, but that power exists.
It's actually going to be probably quite a while before anyone can safely say that the action plan is working or it needs to be fine-tuned here or there.
That's true, because the implementation, I've just given some of the main things that are going to happen at the high school level.
As an example, three years and now we will be beginning to implement some new testing in the areas of social studies and science at the grade six level.
Now schools are starting to pay more attention to those two areas right now, but the first testing of students will not occur until 1988, 1989 in those areas.
We're talking about a 10-year implementation phase of the overall program.
The two-year requirement for study of second languages in anywhere between kindergarten and grade nine will not really trigger and be completely implemented until the class of 1994.
That's a long ways away.
Do you find, as someone who works in this end of education that the legislature has been more responsive to educational issues and needs in recent years?
No question about it. In the late 1960s you had a period when there was a lot of...
Well, there were many reports coming out that education didn't make a difference.
Your ability to function academically was determined so the report said by the type of family you came from.
In the middle 70s we started to see more sensible studies in my judgment and of course in the 80s, the early 80s you've seen the tremendous attention given to education both nationally and in their state.
We started our action plan around a year and a half before all the national reports started to be discussed.
But as a result of our discussions in New York State which went on for two and a half years before the action plan really became law, we had tremendous amount of discussion.
The legislature and the governor were deeply involved in that process.
The regents finally established the standards but there was two and a half years of debate on the reforms.
I think as a result of that one there's an increased recognition that education does make a difference.
That as a society if we don't have a good education system we're not going to be able to survive.
Secondly there's been a commitment on the part of the legislature to fund and provide the funds that are necessary to offer the kind of program that we think we need in New York State.
New York State obviously has always had probably the finest system in the country.
But we're in a competitive situation and we have to improve.
And the legislature in my judgment recognizes that as evidenced by over a billion dollars that they've provided in increased funds in the last two years.
What else do you see on the horizon from the regions from the legislature, from the governor?
What kind of things can the public be expecting to see in addition to all the work that's going on now?
There's going to be a continued and probably a heightened discussion now of the role of teaching in the education system.
The commissioner in the board of regents will be holding this fall a series of 10 regional conferences throughout the state looking at the whole issue of how can teaching be improved.
And there's several elements to that. One we'll be looking at the issue of supply and demand.
It's becoming clearer and clearer that we have a fierce shortage coming down the pike in terms of just about any area that you want to talk about in education.
We'll be looking at the image of teaching. Clearly that's a problem.
What's expected of teachers? How does the public view teaching?
How should we change our teacher education preparation programs in the future to make sure that the teachers that come out of our colleges are properly prepared to deal with the kinds of demands that are included in the action plan?
The action plan itself focused in on the demands and expectations that we would impose on the student and the worst certain components of the plan in terms of accountability, etc.
But the interest in my judgment, both on the legislature and certainly in terms of our efforts, we'll be on looking at teaching during the next six or eight months.
I'm sure the legislature will end up making some initiatives in this area as well.
That's also a kind of program that has a long lag time.
That's true. Special, well, there's several elements to it. Some things you can deal with in the short run.
We have argued as part of our action plan and this will be addressed in our state aid recommendations to the legislature for the need for staff development.
No business in this country can operate without upgrading the skills of existing teachers.
And we in our action plan have argued for up to ten full days for each professional tool for their involvement in professional development.
And we think that's crucial. That will not happen unless the legislature provides substantial funding to help that happen.
But that's something that can be done fairly quickly. You're right in terms of revising teacher education programs. That's going to take some time.
Changing public attitudes towards teaching is going to take time.
So there's a mix of things in my judgment that both address the short and the long term objectives and concerns.
Final question is education still an exciting field to be in in the mid-1980s?
Well, probably more exciting than it has been in the last 20 or 25 years in my judgment because of the public awareness and the public expectations and the public commitment to education.
I mean that's evidence in public opinion polls. The public itself is interested. I think the real challenge for those of us that are in education is to be accountable to the public to show them that we're making the progress that they expect of us and getting the students to have higher expectations.
Deputy Education Commissioner Gerald Freeborn.
Let's not kid ourselves. Education is very political, but we simply don't like to admit it. That's because in this country education is supposed to be above politics and corruption because it is our children, our most precious commodity and resource that we are talking about.
So that when education gets quote, political, we tend not to admit that we are talking politics.
Let me give you a few such examples. It was very political to argue that the wicked lottery could only be justified by giving the proceeds to education.
Although by now we know that the proceeds of the lottery really went to support the entire state budget.
It is very political every time a school board budget is defeated in a locality and the commissioner of education has to put that school board on a so-called austerity budget, which of course as we all know is a major part of what the voters just went and defeated.
And of course elections for school boards and the treatment then doled out by school boards to their employees is also very, very political.
But now comes a new twist to being non-political in the education sphere to which Commissioner Gordon-Ombock's proposal that social studies students around the state debate that portion of President Reagan's tax proposal that would nullify the New York tax payers' rights.
The New York tax payers' rights to deduct state and local taxes from the federal tax.
The hue and cry has gone up that the commissioner's proposal is propagandistic and worse than that it is, you guessed it, political.
And my answer is that it is three things. It is indeed political. It is indeed educational. And it is indeed brilliant.
Ombock and is sometimes nemesis the governor. Both know the same thing. They both know that if people can't deduct their state and local taxes from the federal income tax that there is going to be tremendous pressure on both of them to reduce cost and hence services.
In education that could spell disaster. After all, Ombock is the appointed guardian of our kids education.
If deductibility is over, then so will a lot of what this commissioner and his deputies have worked so hard for.
So for him to have the kids talk the issue over in school and go home and explain it all to their parents most of whom couldn't care less. Now is a brilliant move.
It is brilliant because there is really only one way that New Yorkers can come down on this issue even if both sides of the issue are fairly presented in debate.
And the end result will be political pressure from citizens on the federal government not to take away their precious deduction. And yes, of course it's political.
But so is getting up in the morning when you think about it.
That's our show for this week. Join us again next week for another look at state government and politics.
Bill Groldy edits and produces and often stars in this program. Leslie Broko is associate editor. Please address comments and questions to us at WAMC, box 13,000 Albany, New York 12212. I'm Alan Chartock.
The legislative Gazette is a production of WAMC news. Alan Chartock is executive producer.
This program is made possible with funds provided by the State University of New York College at Newport.
