Back to School: A Q&A With Merryl Tisch

As public school students begin to return to classes this month, education issues are once again heating up. In an interview with City & State’s Ashley Hupfl, Merryl Tisch, the chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, weighed in on Common Core, prekindergarten expansion, standardized testing and other education policy issues.

City & State: What did you think of the latest Common Core test scores?
Merryl Tisch: The progress was modest, but real. There’s a lot of work to do. If you ask me right track/wrong track, I’d say clearly there are many districts in this state [that] are doing hard work and who are proceeding along a track that is going to yield results. I think we need to work hard, and we need to be patient with the system and need to be ambitious for all of our students.

When you see the results in New York City and the increase in the number of African-Americans and Hispanic students who have moved out of the Level 1 category—those numbers are real, right? And when you see just pockets of people who are doing brilliant work around curriculum and instruction, particularly in math, you see real results. English Language Arts—for a variety of different reasons, people around the nation who are experts in the field say it is a harder thing to shift instructional practice around, but it’s really important, and it is really significant to work at and keep moving forward.

C&S: Do you expect greater increases in passing rates as time goes on?
MT: I would imagine, as I said last year, I thought the scores would go up year from year. Obviously this is all about instruction, curriculum and professional development, and it’s very significant and very important to stick with this. And I would imagine, as I’ve said before, as we keep proceeding down this 12-year commitment to raising standards, you will start to see better results.

C&S: How is the expansion of prekindergarten affecting the state Board of Regents?
MT: The state Education Department was peripherally involved in the contracts and reviewing the contracts from the districts who applied for pre-K dollars. Clearly, we are looking at the standards, but these are really local programs that are going to be administered locally. We are hoping that these are not going to be babysitting programs. We know that kids who get quality early-beginning [education] tend to do much better, and so the capacity of the instructional team and the people who are running these pre-K programs are all very significant, and I hope we see a lot of great participants around the state.

C&S: Over the past few years, tension has been high between the state Board of Regents and the teachers’ union. Is there any hope that will diminish soon?
MT: I think so. I want people to remember that the evaluation system was negotiated with the union. That when New York State went to apply for the federal grant called Race to the Top, Michael Mulgrew was sitting at the table with us, talking about the importance of instructional shifts, talking about the importance of curriculum, talking about the importance of raising the standards. Out of all of this I want everyone to clearly understand that even though the rhetoric is very high in public space, we have worked with our colleagues in the teachers’ union very effectively over many different issues. But I never paid much attention to what the rhetoric is in public space. I happen to have very good personal working relationships with the union, as does the [state Education] Department. We work together; we work collaboratively. That doesn’t mean we agree on everything, but it means that on more things than not, the product that you see in public space is a direct result of collaboration of hearing each other.

C&S: Standardized testing continues to be a major issue. What is the latest in this area?
MT: One of the things I hear is that the field reports after the testing show that kids would benefit from more time on the ELA test. I personally think that sounds like a sound idea, if the idea is to let children show what it is they can do. Why put on a time restraint? I don’t want any kid to leave and feel like they didn’t get enough chance to show their best.

There’s a lot of misconception out there, but I do want to reiterate: In New York State we were never really highly test-dependent in terms of teacher performance or what happens with kids. We have and always have had a multimeasured system.

I also never understood why we couldn’t use performance-based assessments for music and art. I’d like to encourage everyone to have a really rigorous conversation about multiple pathways to graduation. As you know, we are considering a change to graduation pathways that would allow students to get to graduation showing different competencies. It’s a fluid conversation, but that’s what good policy is about. Good policy is always about growth, expansion of opportunities and adjustments that are appropriate from what you hear from the field. But it should not be a retreat away from the ambition that we need to have for every student in New York State.

C&S: Going into the new school year, are there any major changes parents should know about?
MT: That’s an interesting question. I would hope that we are better at getting information out to the field, we are better at disseminating what the standards are all about, what the evaluation is all about, why we are making these shifts and how we have every child’s best interest at heart. I would want just an open dialogue with a better sharing of information and a better description of what the results are, what we’re all working toward and why we’re all working toward that. you see just pockets of people who are doing brilliant work around curriculum and instruction, particularly in math, you see real results. English Language Arts—for a variety of different reasons, people around the nation who are experts in the field say it is a harder thing to shift instructional practice around, but it’s really important, and it is really significant to work at and keep moving forward.