The New York Board of Regents has held hearings across the state. At all but one–in Brooklyn, which was dominated by StudentsFirst supporters, parents have spoken out against the botched implementation of Common Core and the testing. Parents assumed they were talking to a wall because they received the same non-responses at every meeting. And despite their outrage, Commissioner John King and Chairman of the Regents Merryl Tisch have stated repeatedly that there will be no change of course. The Regents announced the formation of a committee to study the implementation, but stacked it with supporters of the failed status quo.
In this opinion piece published in Newsday on Long Island, where parent opposition has been fierce, Carol Burris and John Murphy call for an elected Board of Regents. The current board, they say, is unaccountable to the public because it is appointed by the state Assembly, and by one man, the leader of the Assembly. Regents can ignore public opinion because they are unaccountable. Burris and Murphy say they should stand for election.
Term limits is another form of accountability. Limiting them to serve for a single five-year term would be a huge reform. Most Regents serve at their own pleasure. One has been on the board for 20 years. He could remain another 20 years, if he chose.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s about time!! The Regents have been largely benign for a long time because people were willing to accept a limited amount of testing to assure independent quality.
Even though the Regents were responsible for Standards before this, the impact of Standards has never been so severe in terms of both the amount of testing and the impact of those tests on teachers and students with the recently eliminated Local Diploma and the upping of the GED requirements.
Now that there is substantial power at the level of the Regents to control on a very local level what teachers and students need to know and to control them, parents deserve a voice in the Regents and they need to be accountable. If Teachers are accountable for helping children learn, the Regents should be accountable to being measured according to those they serve at the pleasure of – and the leader of the assembly is not in a good position to be the person they are accountable to.
Having elected Regents would be a big improvement, but I’m skeptical about term limits, especially a single term. That seems to inspire people to come in and try to change as much as possible as fast as possible without worrying about public opinion, since the public won’t have another say again anyway. As long as they have to worry about re-election, they have to worry about public opinion.
On the other hand, I recognize that public education shouldn’t be all about public opinion (otherwise the Bible would be pretty much the sole curriculum throughout the South), so maybe some kind of mix of elected and appointed positions, or a two-term limit so that half the board faces re-election and half doesn’t.
Nice gratuitous swipe at the south. How about this:
“On the other hand, I recognize that public education shouldn’t be all about public opinion (otherwise politically correct liberal pablum would be pretty much the sole curriculum throughout the Northeast).”
Now I don’t believe that, nor would I ever write it other than here to make a point. Your sentence would have made your point in a respectful manner without the insult. That you included it diminishes the strength of your argument.
I strongly support making the Regents a publicly elected board, or at the very least the commissioner position.
The problem is the same as we’ve seen with New York City, where even allegedly progressive candidates like de Blasio and Liu staunchly support continuing and extending mayoral control. The power of controlling who gets on the board is not something that Silver is likely to give up without a huge fight.
The obstinance of the Regents on CCSS, InBloom, and other issues makes me wonder how financially vested they are in these “reforms”.
The elephant in the room, however, is New York’s undemocratic tax cap, which is slowly ravaging rural and suburban districts. Hoping to read your thoughts on this soon.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/NYSUT-argues-legality-of-tax-cap-5080151.php
Please don’t get angry with the dummies and forget whose laps they sit on. The unpaid “fellows”, legislative councils, lobbyists…give them their agendas, put the sad humorless words in their mouths.
Merryl Tisch is dangerous to public education. We have two very poorly equipped individuals (King and Tisch) leading one of the most complex and diverse education systems in the country. It has been clear for a long time that the car was running off the road and was going to end up in the ditch. When the balance of the Regents stand by and do nothing despite cries of outrage you have to conclude they are complicit in the intentional effort to destroy public education. We have a mess on our hands–right now PK-12 education in NY is in a state of turmoil If the rest of the Regents do not demand that King and Tisch give back the keys to the car when they convene in January then we will need to do something I would like to avoid–invite the legislature to take over and solve the problem. Fiasco is the only word that describes the outcome of King and Tisch’s time in leadership roles–we go much further and no one is going to be able to put Humpty back together again!
This report made me think of Peter Herschend, a large property owner from Branson, Missouri. He was appointed by a republican governor, John Ashcroft in the early nineties. He has been destructive to public education in Missouri, and serves presently as president of the board, often the only one the clueless Missouri media talks to. I have hopes that some of the important decisions about the school transfer mess in st. Louis and unfairly slated for Kansas city will find the senile servant of the billionaire Sinquefield challenged by the five other members, appointed mostly by democrat Jay Nixon.
Here is Ted Mitchell’s bio from Teachingchannel.org where he is on the Board of Directors:
[Ted Mitchell
President and CEO, NewSchools Venture Fund
Ted Mitchell is the President and CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm committed to transforming public education by supporting education entrepreneurs. Since its founding in 1999, NewSchools has raised more than $150 million and supported over 40 early stage education ventures, helping them to build high-performing organizations that serve America’s most underserved children. Prior to taking the helm at NewSchools in 2005, Ted served as President of Occidental College, Vice Chancellor and Dean of the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, and as Professor and Chair of the Department of Education at Dartmouth College. Ted also served as the President of the California State Board of Education from 2007-2011. Ted received his BA, MA, and Ph.D from Stanford University, where he served on the Board of Trustees from 1985-1990.]
Here is the link to a NewSchools Venture Fund paper “What is Educational Entrepreneurs?” which includes their definition: “…we will define education entrepreneurs quite narrowly as a rare breed of innovator whose characteristics and activities may lead to the transformation—not merely the slight improvement—of the public education system.”
Click to access EducationalEntrepreneurship.pdf
Wrong Post! I meant to comment about Ted Mitchell.
King and Tisch have disturbed a hornets nest. If they think parents are going to sit by complacently while their children are labeled substandard and forced to study and sit for exam after exam, with multitudes of busy work homework, then the Board of Regents better get used to an angry mob. Accountability is a good thing – although I’m not sure the voters choices won’t be more of the status quo.
Having an elected board of regents should be a major campaign issue in state races. It’s time to start making everyone who runs for office in the state go on record as supporting or not supporting having an elected board of regents.
Teachers have always been good at listening to parents. Often a parent comes to a teacher with a concern and a good teacher listens and together solves the problem with an agreeable solution. King and Tisch don’t have a teacher’s experience in listening to parents. They don’t have the background in working with parents in public schools. A student teacher, as part of their learning, sits in on conferences to learn how to listen, and work as a team with parents. King and Tisch are novices, just like student teachers, having no idea how hard parents will fight to protect their children. They think their superior “I know what is right for your child” attitude is a solution, but parents don’t and won’t put up with such arrogance. It might work in the world of the rich instructing household help, but dismissal and disregard doesn’t work with other people’s children. Welcome to the world of a teacher, Commissioner King and Merryl Tisch. In any school in New York, your attitude would result in a termination letter in June. And if the Regents, Legislators, and Governor continue to stand by and allow you continue pontificating your superior attitude, then they too, should expect goodbye letters in their futures, too.
There must be some way to hold them accountable. What about a lawsuit for breach of trust or abuse of office or misuse of public funds? There must be some cause of action to get rid of those two dictators.