Lawmakers question Board of Regents candidates
Four of panel’s 17 seats are available
State lawmakers on Monday concluded two days of interviews with a slew of candidates for four available seats on the state Board of Regents.
“We appreciate them stepping forward and putting their names into the mix for this volunteer position which is so important,” said Shelley Mayer, chair of the state Senate Education Committee.
On Feb. 11, lawmakers questioned several candidates for the vacant 12th Judicial District previously represented by Betty Rosa, who left her position as chancellor of the board to become commissioner at the state Education Department.
Legislators took an interest in Armina Vegaferrer, a recently retired Mercy College professor, for Rosa’s former seat, which covers the Bronx. Like Rosa, Vega-ferrera is a Bronx native with expertise in bilingual and multicultural education.
“I’m a teacher and a teacher of teachers, and I’m passionate about the teaching profession and the quality of education for New York children,” Vega-ferrer said in her remarks.
Rosa in January was unanimously voted by her colleagues to head the state agency on a permanent basis following a tumultuous year marked by the resignations of multiple top education officials and new challenges brought on by remote learning and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last week, legislators also heard from Regent-atlarge Luis O. Reyes and Regent Elizabeth Hakanson, of the 5th Judicial District, which includes Syracuse. Both members are up for reelection and are seeking another term.
“To me, it’s not only a difficult time but it’s a very special time because the Board of Regents has a new chancellor, Dr. Lester Young ... and was elected just two weeks ago unanimously, and as of Monday Dr. Betty Rosa is state education commissioner,” Reyes said. “It’s a very dedicated and experienced team, and both of them were elected unanimously” demonstrating unity and cohesion on the board.
The Board of Regents has 17 members, with 13 representing judicial districts and four at-large members. They are elected by the Legislature and have the power to shape educational policy in New York. Regents meet monthly and serve fiveyear terms.
Before the pandemic, the board was considering creating alternatives to the Regents exams. For more than a century, passing a series of Regents tests has been a precondition for an accredited high school diploma in New York.
Rosa and Lester W. Young, Jr. have said they plan to focus on equity and narrowing persistent gaps for underserved student populations.
Several candidates vied for the seat representing the 7th Judicial District, which covers the city of Rochester and is held by board Vice Chancellor T. Andrew Brown. Brown, who was first elected to the board in 2012 and had served as vice chancellor since 2016, will leave at the end of the month to focus on a new role as president of the New York State Bar Association.
Candidates for the Rochester seat include Elaine Spaul, a longtime educator and advocate for homeless youth, who said restorative practices can be an “antidote” to institutional racism.
Another candidate, A. Dirk Hightower, a psychologist and faculty member at the University of Rochester, discussed the importance of educating “the whole child.”
Lawmakers also spoke to Nahoko Kawakyu O’connor, a University of Rochester professor whose expertise is in using qualitative assessments to measure learning and mixing those methods with traditional testing.
“One of the greatest challenges I see organizations have is not being able to identify what it means to be successful,” Kawakyu O’connor said. “I don’t believe (standardized tests) are demonstrating the outcomes that we want in our state... it’s convenient, but we need a little bit of a more complex evaluation system that includes qualitative measures.”