Mills & Regents Close the Gap
by M.C. Cohen

“New York City is chock full of talent and we have to figure out how to engage this talent,” said State Education Commissioner Richard P. Mills at a recent New York State Education Department-sponsored policy breakfast called “Closing the Performance Gap.” The meeting served to celebrate the multitude of participants in and outside the educational community who have given their time and effort to improve the overall student performance in the New York City Public Schools.

“Some people here spent time to bring chess to the schools, others were principals for a day, other business executives came to read to the children,” continued Commissioner Mills in his keynote address. “What we want to do today is talk to them about the common work at hand. And that’s closing the gap in student achievement. You can’t close this without a lot of partnerships. Certainly the schools have to do the main business of educating. No partnership will succeed if the leadership isn’t in place in the schools.”

Educational performance varies from school district to school district, region to region, and is chiefly based on socioeconomic factors. Almost 40 organizations, including Chess in the Schools, The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund and the Everybody Wins Foundation, have participated in the effort to close the gap.

“People have gone outside of their normal schedule to affect policy,” said Sheila Evans-Tranumn, Associate Commissioner of the State Education Department School and Community Services. “We’re really trying to bring as many partners to the table as possible in order to close this achievement gap. It’s not going to be solely with institutions. We have to bring concerned citizens like these people and their organizations to the table to talk about what we can do to help our children.”

Others besides Commissioner Mills were in attendance to support this important issue, including Regents’ Vice Chancellor Adelaide Sanford and Regent-at-Large Merryl Tisch.

“The Commissioner’s ability to marshal resources has been all-important in this effort,” Tisch said. “And the combination of the Commissioner’s and Ms. Sanford’s ability to form a clear agenda—I think it’s going to yield enormous results.”

Commissioner Mills has been specifically targeting this issue for about two or three years. Despite this relatively short amount of time, school officials have already made advances towards bringing in more certified teachers and in closing the fiscal gap. The developing partnership with the outside community has also made a difference.

Still, given the economic variance between neighborhoods and school districts in New York City, there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. #

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