October 26, 1999
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Former State Commissioner Says New Learning Standards Are Minimum for Sound Basic Education
Thomas Sobol Takes Stand To Address Standards Issue
In Historic Case To Revamp Allocation Of State Education Dollars
Crew Deputy Harry Spence To Testify Tomorrow
Deputy Schools Chancellor Harry Spence, second-in-command to Chancellor Crew, is expected to testify tomorrow on an overview of the conditions in public schools.
Commissioner Sobol continued the third week of testimony in Campaign For Fiscal Equity v. State of New York, the landmark suit arguing that state education funding to New York City and other districts with large numbers of students with special needs prevents students from those areas from receiving the opportunity for a "sound basic education" guaranteed by Article XI, Section I of the State Constitution, and from meeting the new Regents learning standards.
The former State Education Commissioner testified on the issue of the State's own new Learning Standards, standards that Mr. Sobol helped develop.
Debunking the argument presented by attorneys for the State, Mr. Sobol said that these standards are not "aspirational" or "optimal."
Instead, said Mr. Sobol, "They are, in the considered judgement of the Regents, after years of analysis and input from thousands of experts, teachers, parents, and business people from across the state, the minimum, not the optimum, that students need to function productively in the 21st century."
The Learning Standards, according to Mr. Sobol, "contain the skills and knowledge in each subject area that the state has determined to be the minimum that each student needs to function productively as a citizen and in the workforce."
Mr. Sobol, who is also the former President of the University of the State of New York, was read verbatim examples from the new Learning Standards, which every student in the State of New York is expected to master, as assessed by the Regents exams for English Language Arts which are now required to graduate from a New York State high school.
The questions were asked by Michael Rebell, Executive Director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. (CFE), the non-profit coalition of parent organizations, community school boards, concerned citizens and advocacy groups that brought this landmark suit before the bench. They included:
Q. Is it aspirational, in your view, for the state to expect elementary school children to demonstrate their comprehension and expression skills by "read[ing] a picture book to the class and point[ing] out how the pictures add meaning to the story?
A. No.
Q. Dr. Sobol, do you consider it aspirational for the state to expect middle school students to show their mastery of reading and speaking skills by " us[ing] facts and data from news articles and television reports in an oral report on a current event?"
A. No.
Q. Dr. Sobol, is it aspirational for the state to expect high school seniors to demonstrate their analytic skills by "listen[ing] to speeches of two political candidates and compar[ing] their stands on several major issues?"
A. No.
Q. Dr. Sobol, is it "aspirational" to expect elementary school students to "read several versions of a familiar fairy tale and recognize the differences in the versions"?
A. No.
Q. Is it "aspirational" to expect middle school students to "produce a summary of the information about a famous person found in a biography, encyclopedia, and textbook"?
A. No.
Q. Is it "aspirational" to expect a high school senior to "read a current article on a scientific issue, such as the greenhouse effect, and compare it to an earlier explanation of the same issue"?
A. No.
In light of the Attorney General's characterization of the Learning Standards as being "optimal," Mr. Rebell asked whether school districts are permitted to impose higher standards and higher graduation requirements on their students than the Regents now require state-wide.
Mr. Sobol answered that the Regents' Policy Statement adopting the Learning Standards specifically stated that the Commissioner was authorized to permit local school districts to use alternate assessments which were at least as challenging as the Regents Examinations.
Mr. Sobol said that use of the College Boards Advanced Placement Examinations and the International Baccalaureate have already been approved as acceptable alternatives, and some school districts are still petitioning for additional options.
In addition, Mr. Sobol indicated that it is usually the high-achieving districts like Scarsdale or Larchmont who feel that the Learning Standards are not pegged at a high enough level for their students and they want to use more demanding tests.
In conjunction with former Commissioner Sobol's testimony, attorneys from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity presented as an exhibit Mr. Sobol's preface to the 1988 "655 Report."
Written in 1988 and addressed to the Governor and the Legislature, the preface and the report described the "dual nature of New York State's public school system....one of two contrasting systems – one largely suburban, white, affluent, and successful; and the other largely urban, of color, poor, and failing."
At that time, Commissioner Sobol wrote, "It is a situation which all people must view with alarm."
Despite the success of some school districts, according to Commissioner Sobol, the 655 Report also detailed "a dramatic pattern of school failure among a substantial portion of out student population."
"Thousands upon thousands of young people are not acquiring the skills and knowledge they need to function successfully in this society. Each year, thousands upon thousands drop out of school. Each year, thousands upon thousands are consigned to a socioeconomic underclass, where they face dismal personal lives and constitute a growing threat to the well-being of the total society," he wrote.
Mr. Sobol continued to say that "This pattern of failure is concentrated chiefly in our large cities and in our impoverished rural areas. It is a pattern clearly associated with poverty and with race. The students whom our system fails are disproportionately poor and minority."
"And yet, these students most in need frequently lack access to an equitable share of the State's educational resources," he said.
"Commissioner Sobol made these remarks more than a decade ago," Mr. Rebell observed. "Education experts like Mr. Sobol have been warning our governmental leaders that an education crisis exists, but the system has not changed."
In the court system since 1993, Campaign For Fiscal Equity v. State of New York charges that thousands of students in New York City and other high-need districts are being denied the opportunity to a sound, basic education because they attend overcrowded schools with inadequate supplies and a lack of experienced, certified teachers.