January 11, 2008

Dear Colleagues:

Thank you for your many contributions at the December 19 Contracts for Excellence (C4E or Contracts) event at Hudson Valley Community College. For those of you who could not attend in person, I was delighted that you were able to participate through the webcast. Your comments were valuable in helping us to evaluate next steps for the web-based system, the legislation and regulations. Your enthusiasm and willingness to share your knowledge and experience will continue to help ensure that research based practices put in place in school districts with C4Es will raise achievement for students with the greatest educational need.

The information distributed in advance of the December 19 meeting remains available on our website: www.emsc.nysed.gov/mgtserv/C4E. Attached is an overview of our meeting including a list of registered participants, a summary of your comments and recommendations, and proposed next steps. As we discussed, we are asking Superintendents to provide us with a summary of your C4E program by February 1, 2008. This will be used to finalize a brochure highlighting the work you are doing in your schools to improve the achievement of students with the greatest educational need. Please see Highlighting C4E Programs, included under Next Steps, in Appendix A for specific instructions.

If you wish to participate in continuing discussions about next steps for C4E, please contact the Office of Educational Management Services at 518.474.6541 (emscmgts@mail.nysed.gov) by February 1, 2008. See the section titled On-going Development under Next Steps in the attached meeting summary for more details.

Thank you for your ongoing cooperation and thoughtful contributions to the C4E process. I also appreciate the many positive comments we received from you on the December 19 event. Best wishes for a happy, healthy and productive New Year.

Sincerely,

Johanna Duncan-Poitier

Attachments

c: Members of the New York State Board of Regents

Richard Mills

APPENDIX A

Contracts for Excellence

December 19, 2007

Hudson Valley Community College

Troy, New York

Meeting Summary

The meeting on December 19, 2007 provided an opportunity to reflect on what has been learned throughout this year’s process of developing and implanting C4Es and identify opportunities for strengthening the process for future years. The meeting was well attended with almost all C4E districts represented. Eighty-two persons participated including superintendents and other district staff attending in person or by webcast, District Superintendents and BOCES representatives, representatives of professional associations, legislative and executive branch staff, and State Education Department representatives, as well as Regent Joseph Bowman.

There was a rich exchange of information and participants’ written comments about the event were overwhelmingly positive, with attendees noting their appreciation of the opportunity to engage in joint planning.

Feedback received previously by districts throughout the process - including at one-on-one meetings with school districts, professional associations, and advocacy groups, as well as at Department-sponsored regional information sessions - was summarized in the materials distributed and discussed by the meeting participants. Participants also shared new and valuable feedback for next steps. Issues were grouped by category and further deliberated in three small group settings. The goal of the discussion groups was to identify recommendations for the Department’s administrative process, regulations and legislative action. Suggestions that were received subsequent to the event have also been incorporated under the appropriate topic.

Summary of Participant Feedback

Participants’ feedback and recommendations can be summarized in three general areas:

• Provide greater flexibility in the future for the implementation of C4E by continuing or expanding the 25 percent allowed to continue existing programs so as not to add to the local tax burden with C4E programs.
• There needs to be sufficient time to appropriately evaluate the impact of C4E on student achievement. This is consistent with the Regents proposal that the term for being a C4E district be a total of three years.
• Re-examine the criteria for identifying school districts for the C4E program that have relatively minor student achievement issues.

Next Steps

Highlighting C4E Programs

As promised, the Department will publish and feature highlights of each district’s C4E. Based on your Contract submissions, a draft of program highlights was included in the materials distributed at the meeting and can serve as a summary for the type of information you may wish to include in your program description.

Please submit your district’s C4E program description by February 1, 2008 to

Deborah Cunningham, Coordinator of Educational Management Services, at: emscmgts@mail.nysed.gov. It should be about 150 words in length, and outline your C4E strategies and targeted student groups. Also, please include a single statement summarizing the targeted strategies you have put in place to improve student achievement. This will serve as a “header” for your C4E synopsis in the statewide program booklet. You may also want to include, briefly, the types of issues that shaped your process for adopting specific, allowable program options.

These descriptions will be published and shared broadly with other districts, state officials, including the Governor and State legislators, researchers and the general public.

System Improvements

Consistent with your recommendations, we are pursuing further development of the web-based C4E system to include an easy-to-use reporting process that will include standardized choices for input measures (such as the number of minutes the school day is extended, the number of teachers mentored or coached, etc.). These revisions will make it easier to input data, to make changes during the development of Contracts and to incorporate performance targets.

Legislation

We are working with the Executive and Legislature to share the following legislative recommendations regarding C4E:

§ Limit C4E school districts to those that have been in accountability status for two years in a row and have failed to meet adequate yearly progress in the most recent year.

§ Beginning in 2008-09, have the full term for being a C4E district be a total of three years rather than one. For districts that completed a Contract in 2007-08, extend the term for two additional years. A three-year time frame will also allow proper evaluation of C4E programs after students have had sufficient time to benefit from them.

§ Provide support for the increased costs of C4E programs year to year by clarifying that C4E funds can be used to pay for the increased costs of programs implemented in prior years.

Regulation

We will propose regulatory changes to the Board of Regents at their February meeting that are informed by your recommendations. Changes under consideration include providing in advance standards for approving Contracts, proposed timelines for Department and district actions, and procedures relating to public participation in developing Contracts.

On-going Development

Several additional topics require further development. Chuck Szuberla, Shelia Evans-Tranumn, Deborah Cunningham, and Ira Schwartz are planning to conduct a series of meetings and/or webcasts to allow superintendents and their staffs to work jointly with SED on these next steps:

Ø Define Supplanting--to more clearly define what is intended for C4E districts, with numerous examples to operationalize the definition.

Ø Performance evaluation-- to provide input into the Department’s plan for evaluating C4E school districts for student achievement growth that is consistent with the Board of Regents achievement goals.

Ø Auditing--Continued discussions with the public school accounting committee of the CPA Society to share with them our process of approving C4E and to get their advice regarding an effective certification statement for auditors to document that districts have supplemented and not supplanted district effort. It will be important to share this draft certification statement with C4E districts and get their input.

Ø Measuring educational need--this was the basis of our analyses to ensure districts were targeting C4E funds to students with the greatest educational needs. NYC staff, in particular, have asked to work with us on this, especially concerning the measurement of low achievement.

If you are interested in participating in upcoming meetings or webcasts to further discuss these issues, please e-mail Deborah Cunningham, Coordinator of Educational Management Services, at emscmgts@mail.nysed.gov so that arrangements can be finalized.

APPENDIX B

Recommendations: Small Group Discussions

December 19, 2007 Forum on Contracts for Excellence

Reflecting on What We’ve Learned and Next Steps

Discussion Group 1: Supplementing, Flexibility and Other Fiscal Issues

Flexibility in the legislation was a pervasive recommendation shared by forum participants. The legislation allowed for 2007-08 flexibility with regard to three percent over base year funding to be used for any purpose as unrestricted aid and 25 percent of the remaining Contract amount to be allowed to be used for continuing district programs in the five allowable areas identified in the statute. Participants recommended for 2008-09 and beyond, the three percent flexibility continue and the 25 percent be discontinued.

Feedback from Participant Discussion Group 1:

A. Have one point of contact at the State Education Department for each C4E district.

B. Performance indicators must take into account, and provide for, changing demographics in C4E districts and buildings.

C. Further clarification be provided regarding various scenarios and situations that involve the question of supplementing vs. supplanting. Specifically, “Do the current year C4E programs have to be continued? Do the contracted performance metrics have to be maintained for previous year C4E programs going forward?”

D. Allow C4E districts to help with the evaluation of their own plan, programs and performance. C4E districts as a group should help design the evaluation tools and process.

E. The Frequently Asked Questions and Answers and other guidance documents provided by the State Education Department were helpful throughout the process.

F. Allow for more flexibility.

1. Permit more latitude for school districts to build upon current district improvement plans that were already in place. Districts that had previously implemented improvement plans developed through SED guidance and support should have been given consideration to fold these into the Contract for Excellence by continuing or expanding the option to use 25 percent of Contract funds to continue previously existing district programs.

2. School districts that are high need and low wealth should be allowed to apply a higher percentage of their Foundation Aid increase to the overall school district budget.

3. School districts that have a local tax levy rate on true value that exceeds 120 percent of the New York State average should be allowed to direct a percentage of Foundation Aid toward the general operation of the district.

4. Provide for an Education Inflation Rate to compensate for changes in costs. The Regents proposed 2% increase for 2008-09 (or even the 3% from 2007-08) will not come close to covering the increased cost of the new programs.

G. If possible, allow for individualization of each district’s contract. In particular, one participant mentioned that the districts should be compared to surrounding districts and not to the entire C4E population.

H. What about incentives for full compliance and “good performance”?

I. Is school construction an allowable expense for a C4E district? Specifically, this question was a response to the recommendation that they can only push-in a teacher as part of CSR in Rest of State (ROS) if they don’t have additional space.

Discussion Group 2: Performance Evaluation and Accountability

Feedback from Participant Discussion Group 2:

A continuing interest of some C4E superintendents is to change legislation to permit the expansion of allowable programs to include using C4E funds to pilot the value-added assessment model. C4E superintendents repeatedly expressed interest in value-added assessment as a method of recognizing the progress districts make with struggling students. Department staff advised that districts should consider submitting proposals using the experimental option to pilot value-added assessment as an alternative to legislative change.

A. Because of the transient nature and mobility of students, coupled with timeframes for data on student assessments and, in turn, accountability status, the same student cohort that got a district into accountability status in year 1 may not be there in year 2. The C4E system should accommodate this situation.

B. C4E unlike NCLB should ideally take a holistic approach to accountability. Rather than the “non-performance” of a single subgroup triggering a requirement, it should be the performance of all pupils that is the metric that drives whether a district needs to complete a C4E.

C. The allowable programs and options list should be expanded to include districts who want to pilot their own growth model, specifically a value-added model, before the State implements a value added assessment model statewide.

D. The issue of data, particularly with regard to the development of the unique student identification system is problematic. Improvements to the software are recommended to improve the efficacy of the data collection and reporting system. Data need to be timely, reliable and verifiable.

E. Really appreciate the State Education Department’s new coordinated monitoring plan. Also, the three years proposed by the Regents in their state aid proposal is responsive to district concerns about having an adequate amount of time for evaluation.

F. Chapter 57 and C4E have introduced a new way of looking at and addressing the achievement gaps. This shift is already apparent and has resulted in behavioral changes within C4E districts. Nevertheless, the evaluation plan should be a multi-year one, emphasizing inputs and processes that have changed in the early years, e.g., what percent change in CRS was achieved, and only in the subsequent years, should it emphasize or focus on measuring or capturing achievement gains that may have flowed from C4E.

G. Facilitate better coordination of the monitoring of C4E districts by using a single state intervention team per district. Multiple visits strain both district and SED capacity.

Discussion Group 3: General Issues (NYC and Web Cast participants)

Feedback from Participant Discussion Group 3:

Class Size Reduction (CSR) efforts are of significant interest, specifically the regulation that would support a provision that a second teacher in a classroom can be used only if space is not available to add new classrooms. Some participants argued that good information is not yet available on the impact on student achievement of the class size reduction strategy that adds a second teacher into an existing classroom vs. adding a new teacher and classroom. Additional comments and recommendations from participants included:

A. It may be premature to go forward with a regulatory change limiting the addition of a second teacher to a classroom.

B. There needs to be more discussion of the measurement of educational need, especially academic achievement.

C. Start early and communicate all expectations to school districts.

D. The C4E plan should be included in the district’s comprehensive education plan.

E. Tie flexibility in the use of C4E funds to accountability status improvement.

F. Allow sufficient time to evaluate school districts.

G. Clarify the C4E amendment process.

H. Provide more scientifically based research supported programs.

I. C4E programs should not burden local tax payers.

Participant Comments

Participants at the meeting on December 19 shared many thoughtful comments and suggestions, as well as many statements of appreciation. At the conclusion of the session, participants were provided with an opportunity share anonymously whatever additional comments they wished to provide. The following are quotations of some of the comments that were provided to give all interested persons a flavor of the positive energy and cooperation of C4E district representatives.

Thank you for continued communication with all the C4E districts.

Thank you for the opportunity to share our collective ideas and concerns.

Provide a web link that will allow viewing of today’s auditorium presentations. You have a nice team that is really trying hard and doing the right thing. Great attitudes from you folks. Thanks.

Thank you. This was a very proactive session and filled with a proactive tone. The combination of small group and large group discussion broke up the lengthy day. Again, very forward thinking. I also think flexibility is the key component for our districts’ success. Thanks.

I appreciated the positive nature of this session. We see that you are taking ideas and feedback into account. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, as in the past, I feel we are being heard, and that is a good feeling. Also, thank you for the hands on support from SED. In a district with 3 building principals we all wear many hats so your assistance is especially important. Lastly, we want you to know the BOCES staff is walking with us for C4E!

Thank you for holding this Program – it was very Productive.

Thank you for stepping up as a State Ed. Dept. and Showing Leadership, too often in the past SED has been seen as only regulators.

Thank you for creating this new opportunity for SED/field problem solving and discussion: what a wonderful new approach to collaboration and collective feedback. Worthwhile and helpful!

This session was very informative. We welcome more opportunities to discuss the challenges we have in our districts implementing C4E.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this session. Staff have been very helpful throughout the process. We look forward to continue our partnership to address C4E and the needs of our students and community.

I cannot thank you enough for today's format and webcast. Not only did I not have to drive for hours, I got to participate while addressing issues within the district as we listened and sent in comments. Much thanks for your flexibility and support.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for hearing all our questions and concerns.

APPENDIX C

Contracts for Excellence

December 19, 2007

REGISTERED ATTENDEES

(includes those participating via webcast)

Organization	Representative	Title
Alexander CSD	Dick Young	Superintendent
Amsterdam City SD	Ronald Limoncelli	Superintendent
Auburn City SD	Joseph Pabis	Superintendent
Binghamton City SD	Peggy Wozniak	Superintendent
Brentwood UFSD	Donna Jones	Superintendent
Buffalo City SD	Amber Dixon	Executive Director for Project Initiatives
Cairo-Durham CSD	Sally Sharkey	Superintendent
Cairo-Durham CSD	Lissa Jilek	Business Manager
Cairo-Durham CSD	Kerry Overbaugh	Middle School Principal
Camden CSD	Richard Keville	Superintendent
Camden CSD	Mary Lynne Szczerba	Assistant Superintendent for Instruction
Camden CSD	Karl Keil	Assistant Superintendent for Business
Capital Region BOCES	Kathryn Gerbino	Assistant Superintendent
Central Square CSD	Carolyn Costello	Superintendent
Clyde-Savannah CSD	Marilyn Barr	Superintendent
Clyde-Savannah CSD	Peggy Tyler	Assistant Superintendent of Instruction
Conference of Big 5 School Districts	Georgia Asciutto	Executive Director
Copiague UFSD	Bill Bolton	Superintendent
Copiague UFSD	Charles Leunig	Deputy Superintendent
Delaware-Chenango-Madison-Otsego BOCES	Kerrie Johnston	Director, Instructional Support Services
Dunkirk City SD	Gary Cerne	Superintendent
Dutchess BOCES	Pat Horgan	Office of the Assistant Superintendent
East Irondequoit CSD	Susan Allen	Superintendent
Elmira CSD	Raymond Bryant	Superintendent
Fallsburg CSD	Ivan Katz	Superintendent
Fallsburg CSD	Matthew Evans	Assistant Superintendent
Fallsburg CSD	Dan Grecco	Business Manager
Fulton City SD	Bill Lynch