This week I had an opportunity to attend a lecture by the New York State Commissioner of Education, Mary Ellen Elia, at Manhattanville College. The title of her presentation was: “On Our Way to Stronger Schools: Progress Made and the Work Ahead.”  Quite impressively, she has spent the past year logging more than 35,000 miles in her car traveling across the entire state of New York, meeting and listening to students, parents and school leaders.  She met with all of these stakeholders to hear their views on New York State’s learning standards, curriculum, assessments and teacher evaluations.

Here are some of her priorities:

• Rethinking some of our standards
• Reexamining our curriculum
• Looking at our present assessments
• Engaging parents in meaningful ways
• Supporting our school Leaders

Commissioner Elia spoke repeatedly about the amount of work we have to do in New York State, and how she and the Board of Regents have already taken some specific actions such as:

• Creating a new Standards Review Committee that will present new revised standards to the Regents this spring
• Putting a moratorium on the use of student test scores for teacher evaluation purposes
• Providing new alternative pathways to graduations, including new options for students with disabilities
• Securing additional funds for professional development for teachers

Although New York State is facing huge challenges, our new commissioner appears to be passionate, articulate, practical and focused on improving our schools for all students.