January 12, 2004 | By Beth Quinn | Times Herald-Record

I've gotta' tell you, no one can beat Record readers.

You folks have paved the way for a statewide campaign to involve everyone in the Regents Rebellion. The rebels are handing out muskets, and you're responsible.

Here's why.

A few weeks ago, I ran a couple of columns about how state Education Commissioner Richard Mills is mucking up the Regents system. By requiring students to pass five Regents exams to graduate, he's both raised the drop-out rate and lowered standards.

I wrote about a grass-roots group in Manhattan, Time Out From Testing, that's organized a petition drive to get this system changed. And we printed a copy of the petition for you to sign and send in.

That's where you came in. More than 2,000 of you signed on. That's huge.

"Your readers are amazing," said Jane Hirschmann of Time Out. "My fax machine still hasn't stopped churning out petitions from people in the Record's area. Now we know how to do this."

What that means, she said, is that Time Out will soon be running copies of the petition in newspapers throughout the state. They learned from you that it's the best way to get people involved.

Let's be clear. This group is not asking for lower standards. They want high standards. But they want a better means of assessing performance, one that doesn't involve punishing students.

After its expanded petition campaign through newspapers is completed, the group will likely have hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Then what?

They know there's no point in taking the petitions to Mills. He's dug in his heels on this.

Instead, they'll be taking them to the state Legislature. They'll be asking lawmakers to pass a bill to override the commissioner and put an end to this.

This is not the done thing in Albany, of course. The commissioner is the expert. He's hired to make decisions and do his job unimpeded by lawmakers. Normally.

But these aren't normal times.

TWO OF THE MOST important lawmakers involved here are Sen. Stephen Saland, R-C, Poughkeepsie, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, and Assemblyman Steven Sanders, D-L, Manhattan, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee.

Two different party affiliations. Two different constituencies. But on this they speak in one voice.

"I've reached the conclusion that high-stakes testing is not the best policy," said Sanders. "But the question remains, what do we do about it? Do we ­ the Legislature ­ want to set a precedent by jumping in and micro-managing? That's a separate question."

Said Saland, "We need some way to measure performance, but one size does not fit all. There's considerable hue and cry about this, but is this a step that the Legislature should take?"

The answer is a resounding yes.

This means lawmakers will have to develop some considerable cajones to do the unprecedented ­ step in and override a commissioner's policy. That's where the petitions come in. Our lawmakers need to feel the love. They need to know the whole state is behind them. They need to know you won't sit still while they say, "Yes, this is a bad policy, but we don't feel it's our job to fix it."

We don't want hand-wringing. We want action.

These things take time, of course, and this campaign isn't going to help this year's seniors, who will be facing January Regents exams in a couple of weeks.

The state Education Department's own data shows that 24.7 percent of students in the Class of 2004 won't graduate in June because they'll be failing at least one of the five required tests.

This petition drive is a test for our lawmakers. Let's hope they don't fail as well.

For a copy of the petition, go to Time Out's Web site at www.timeoutfromtesting.org.

Beth Quinn's column runs on Mondays. Talk to her at 341-1100, Ext. 6305
or at bquinn@th-record.com.