We have a distinguished history dating back to 1784 with the creation of the Board of Regents to oversee Kings College. Today, the Board of Regents and its State Education Department govern education from prekindergarten to graduate school. We are constitutionally responsible for setting education policy, standards and rules - and are legally required to ensure that the entities we oversee carry them out. The Board and Department also govern 39 licensed professions, provide vocational and educational services to people with disabilities, guide local government records programs, oversee public broadcasting, and operate the State Archives, Library and Museum.
This mission and constitutional authority give the Board of Regents and the Department a powerful asset with which to raise the level of learning throughout New York. The responsibilities of the Regents and the state officials in charge of the common schools overlapped. The Regents had a vague statutory authority to oversee all education in the state. The high schools were operated by union free or city school districts, which the law made subject to visitation and inspection by the Superintendent of Public Instruction. However, the academic programs of all secondary schools were under general supervision of the Regents. Outright competition between the Regents and the Department of Public Instruction became intense and public during the 1890s, when the Superintendents of Public Instruction lobbied to have all secondary education placed under their control.