Regents 2008 Board Report
Regents 2008 Board Report: Vice Chancellor's Message
Merryl H. Tisch, Vice Chancellor
How can New York raise achievement among all our students? This is a huge task in any economic climate, but even more difficult now. To help accomplish it, the Board of Regents is moving ahead with new policies and major actions that are designed to meet the challenges.
New York must keep pace with international competition, raising our learning standards and helping students to meet them. So we have embarked on a multi-year effort to revise our decade-old standards in every subject, beginning with English. But that is only the first step; we are committed to helping students and schools meet those standards.
To help increase academic performance, we are also improving the accountability system.We will provide greater flexibility to schools and districts, increase support to struggling schools, streamline regulatory processes, and reduce the number of "lists" of schools in need of improvement. 
Similarly, we are revising our testing system to calculate growth for all students. We plan to show how well our students are performing in school even after they reach proficiency on the State tests;we will measure excellence.
We are also improving the P-12 data system so that next year it will be easier to use, more accurate, and much faster. And finally,we are working with our colleges and universities to create a P-16 data system that will show how well students perform from pre-kindergarten through college. Having complete and accurate data will enable us all – parents, schools, and colleges – to make the best decisions for our students' education.
New York brings huge advantages to all of this work. We have excellent colleges and universities, schools and BOCES, libraries,museums, archives, public broadcasting, vocational rehabilitation agencies, and the professions. Together, we will vigorously pursue the actions needed, and we will succeed.
April 3, 2009