New York State’s schooling system is in steep decline.
Enrollment is down, but spending is up, and educational outcomes are either stagnant or declining. It’s time to reform our system of governance by axing the Board of Regents and giving the governor direct management of the State Department of Education.
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, left, and New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young Jr. preside over a assembly Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, at the state Education Department in Albany, N.Y., where the board thought-about making Regents exams non-compulsory starting with college students who graduate in 2028. Albany Times Union via Getty Images
The Board of Regents units most education insurance policies and selects the State Education Commissioner. The Board units commencement necessities for all excessive colleges in the state, approves adjustments to the state testing program, and offers common supervision for all instructional actions in the state. It is the Board of Regents that persistently shuts down significant enhancements to faculty selection.
New York’s governor has no say over the board members. New York is nearly alone in this place — according to the Education Commission of the States, only eight other states have no position for their governor in choosing these roles.
New York’s governor has no say in the appointment of the Board of Regents. Its members are appointed by the legislature, with most of the affect coming from the Assembly.
The Assembly has been managed by Dems since 1975. Public data suggests that al but a few present regents have backgrounds related with the Democratic Party. This is no shock: the legislature is beholden to state and metropolis lecturers’ unions who oppose any type of faculty selection as nicely as insurance policies that implement accountability for poor public faculty efficiency.
Currently, even if a reform-minded governor of either occasion were to be elected, the board’s structural one-party rule over schooling would railroad any makes an attempt at significant progress.
The state Assembly debates funds payments on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, at the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y. Albany Times Union via Getty Images
Occasionally, sober-minded leaders are in a position to work around this.
For instance, constitution colleges persistently outperform district-run colleges for black, Hispanic, and lower-income college students, but the State DoE has stopped publicizing the achievement gaps between constitution and district colleges in their annual reports and the Regents search to block work-arounds to the state’s ill-advised cap on the progress of constitution colleges in New York City.
Both the regents and the legislature’s leaders have urged Gov. Hochul to disallow the use of scholarships funded by federal tax credit to be used in New York. But, because the tax credit score was federally issued, the board had no authorized say in the matter.
Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks at a press convention saying that a joint investigative partnership by members of the New York State Police and the New York State Department of Financial Services resulted in the arrests of 16 people as half of ongoing and joint auto insurance coverage fraud investigations on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. Brian Zak/NY Post
This will be a huge profit to New York’s households — but it comes despite the board, not thanks to it. Instead, its losing its time lowering New York class sizes at nice expense in a manner that serves the system’s workers and contractors, not college students or taxpayers.
All this speaks to the reality that the Board of Regents in its present type must be scrapped. Our State Constitution requires the existence of the board, but it also notes that its powers and the method of its members’ appointments are topic to assessment and revision. Ideally, the board would have its position in appointing the state schooling commissioner revoked. Only then can New York households regain management over their youngsters’s future.
Ray Domanico is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.