Alex Zimmerman of Chalkbeat reported this morning that New York State officials have decided to eliminate the Regents exams as a high school graduation requirement. Voters in Massachusetts today will decide whether to eliminate the MCAS as a graduation requirement.
New York students will no longer be required to pass Regents exams to earn a diploma beginning in the 2027-28 school year, according to a proposed timeline state officials unveiled Monday.
That means current ninth graders may not need to pass the exams to graduate — though students will continue to take them — a shift with significant implications for teaching and learning across New York.
State education officials have been rethinking what it should take to earn a high school diploma in recent years, sketching out a new “portrait of a graduate” that reflects seven areas over which students must show proficiency. Students are expected to have new ways to demonstrate command of those areas, including internships, capstone projects, and community service.
A major part of the overhaul is reducing the role of Regents exams — standardized tests in English, Math, science, and social studies — that high school students must typically pass to graduate. New York is one of a dwindling number of states that use such exams. Research suggests they do little to promote student achievement or raise their earning potential and can lead to higher dropout rates.
Many educators and advocates have cheered the state’s plans to reduce the influence of Regents exams, arguing that they do not adequately assess student’s skills or knowledge, force teachers to focus on memorization, and present unnecessary hurdles for students with disabilities and English learners.
Yet others worry making the exams optional raises the risk that some students, particularly those with greater needs, will be funneled into less rigorous pathways with lower expectations.
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa acknowledged during Monday’s Board of Regents meeting that the shifts are likely to be contentious.
“We’re going to have some cases where we agree to disagree respectfully,” she said. Still, “we are so excited about the fact that we are moving forward to ensure that our schools really prepare our students for the very, very best.”
Officials sketched out a timeline on Monday for overhauling graduation standards, a process they indicated will take at least five more years. Though the plans are subject to approval from the Board of Regents, here are some of the key dates that students, educators, and parents should keep in mind.
Later this school year: The ‘portrait of a graduate’ emerges
To graduate from high school under the new standards, New York students will have to demonstrate proficiency in seven key areas: critical thinking, effective communication, cultural and social-emotional competences, innovative problem solving, literacy across content areas, and status as a “global citizen.”
Officials are still in the process of defining each of those areas and translating them into explicit credit requirements students must meet. Those definitions are expected to be released sometime this school year, though full details of the new credit requirements won’t be unveiled until the 2025-26 school year.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Yet others worry making the exams optional raises the risk that some students, particularly those with greater needs, will be funneled into less rigorous pathways with lower expectations.”
I lived through the period of “raised expectations” that produced the required level of algebra for every student. Teachers had to find a way to teach what a kid needed and call it algebra. Let us just be realistic and try to get kids to learn without hurting them.
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There’s no shortage of very accomplished people who got lousy standardized test scores.
There is no shortage of people who got very high SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT scores who became hot messes as adults.
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Considering the complete iinvalidity/multiple invalidities that plague standardized testing (not to mention the unethical uses) why would anyone expect anything logical to come from the process?
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New York like so many other states has become testing obsessed. New York used to only offer Regents diplomas only to college bound students. The Regents in the name of “higher standards” have added more and more testing over the years, and they embarked on a misguided campaign, “All roads lead to The Regents” in order for students to graduate with a high school diploma. All it did was force the state to manipulate the results so most students could get their diploma. More testing does not automatically yield better results. It creates a culture of fear from the negative consequences of high stakes testing that creates a stifling environment for teaching and learning. There are no magic bullets or miracles in education, and improvements like smaller classes and specialized programs for disadvantaged students can be helpful if supported by meaningful investment.
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It is time for everyone of us to deal with the fact that our entire country has allowed a DJT to rise like scum to the surface of a shared political life. We cannot demonize the MAGAS. It goes much deeper than that. Seems pretty hypocritical and a bit like deceptive window dressing to advertise and promote “Key areas: critical thinking, effective communication, cultural and social-emotional competences, innovative problem solving, literacy across content areas, and status as a “global citizen.” For our youth when their elders have failed miserably at establishing any of these as our guiding light principles. The BIG changes headed our way really have little to do with VP HARRIS & Team. But instead with a reckoning and a reconnoitering long overdue.
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I taught in New York for over thirty years. At least New Yorkers try to work towards equitable solutions with lofty goals, and its citizens are willing to fund their schools more than most other states. We as a people need to work on our intolerance and prejudice which is largely the result of uncivil extremism. Our young people are watching us.
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I don’t believe, that, standardized testing should be, completely, eliminated out of schools altogether, because, the students need to, have the, most basic levels of skills, i.e. reading, writing, badic math skills, to be able to, survive outside of the, schools. Imagine if all the students, who will be, the ones, making up the, primary workforces, that can’t read, write or, do simple mathematical arithmetic calculations, how will it, affect the, workforce of a country? You need the, most basic levels of, reading, calculating, and, writing skills, if you are to, get at least an, entry level job, to support oneself with.
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“I don’t believe, that, standardized testing should be, completely, eliminated out of schools altogether. . . “
You should believe that it should be eliminated due to all the invalidities involved that result in multiple ethical, logical and moral dilemmas in which multiple harms to the students and teaching and learning process obtain.
“. . . if you are to, get at least an, entry level job, to support oneself with.”
I’d wager that 99.9% of entry level jobs (there are always outliers) do not pay enough for someone to support oneself, much less a family.
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Demonstrating these new skills is highly subjective, currently 20% of Black and Latino students fail to graduate, the primary cause is chronic absenteeism and failure of classes, the new Graduation Measures fails to address these continuing serious issues… will students be graduating with greater literacy and numeracy skills? Or will every student graduate?
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No. . . and yes, in the sense that all will eventually age out of the schools.
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Hmmm, I posted a response to a commenter and both now aren’t showing up.
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Good ol wordpress. Keeps one on one’s toes, eh!
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“Doing the wrong thing righter!*” Career educrats mounting a campaign to make it appear that they care for the students. By their prior actions we know that isn’t true.
*The proliferation of educational assessments, evaluations and canned programs belongs in the category of what systems theorist Russ Ackoff describes as “doing the wrong thing righter. The righter we do the wrong thing,” he explains, “the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right.”
Our current neglect of instructional issues are the result of assessment policies that waste resources to do the wrong things, e.g., canned curriculum and standardized testing, right. Instructional central planning and student control doesn’t – can’t – work. But, that never stops people trying.
The result is that each effort to control the uncontrollable does further damage, provoking more efforts to get things in order. So the function of management/administration becomes control rather than creation of resources. When Peter Drucker lamented that so much of management consists in making it difficult for people to work, he meant it literally. Inherent in obsessive command and control is the assumption that human beings can’t be trusted on their own to do what’s needed. Hierarchy and tight supervision are required to tell them what to do. So, fear-driven, hierarchical organizations turn people into untrustworthy opportunists. Doing the right thing instructionally requires less centralized assessment, less emphasis on evaluation and less fussy interference, not more. The way to improve controls is to eliminate most and reduce all.” Unattributed source.
Or as Thoreau states:
“The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.”- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862], American author and philosopher [my additions]
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Thoughtful post. Students are not standardized. In order to serve them well, we need options for them that will meet their needs instead of simply failing or punishing them.
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Back in 2019 or so, then-Atlanta superintendent Meria Carstarphen put before the school board a “Portrait of a Graduate” concept as an aspect of the school board adopting the “Excellent Schools Framework” that the school board chairperson had pushed the school board to do. The school board chairperson was the TFAer and Howard Fuller acolyte Jason Esteves, now a state senator, by TFA design.
Carstarphen and Esteves’s “Excellent Schools Framework” was quickly revealed to be The City Fund’s “portfolio model” in disguise. Its shininess gradually faded as the truth got out. And “Portrait of a Graduate” morphed into “Profile of a Graduate:” Self-directed & Goal Oriented, Fully Engaged Learners, Academically Prepared, Resourceful & Driven, Critical Thinker & Skilled Problem-solver, and Self-reflective & Globally-connected.
Even so, it still remains difficult to get from the “Profile of a Graduate” any conceptual sense of purpose of public education that would be morally and ethically grounded. Graduates that fit the “Profile of a Graduate” could serve Trump’s fascist purposes just as readily as they could serve anyone else’s ideological purposes, good or bad.
So, look deep to discover what might come with the Regent’s “Portrait of a Graduate.”
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Ed,
That’s a scary thought.
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I have two high school diplomas from the 1960s, the one issued by my Long Island high school for completing the required number of credits, and a Regents diploma, which I earned by passing a specific selection of subject matter exams. Had I chosen to attend college in the state, that latter diploma would have earned me some help with tuition. As it stands, it’s just a reminder of some extra effort on my part, and the excellence of my teachers.
My teaching career was in California, which for a time had the CAHSEE, the high school exit exam. Too many students earned enough credits to graduate, but were denied diplomas because they had not passed that test. This is a good move by NY.
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The NY State English Regents exam tests neither reading nor writing. It gives students arguments to choose and regurgitate in their own words along with a bunch of MC questions on short reading passages. I’ve had students tell me they save time by not reading anything and just looking up the answer. It’s the second worst test I’ve ever seen. The worst test I’ve ever seen is the NYSESLAT, which is supposed to identify how much English newcomers have mastered.
I’m no genius, but I could write a better test than the English Regents exam in 45 minutes. And I can frequently learn more than the NYSESLAT tells me in a one-minute conversation. As far as I can determine, both exams have been written to measure Common Coriness. While perhaps they do that well, it’s not, in my view, a good predictor of anything, let alone a useful quality.
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Ballot Question 2 in Massachusetts today will remove passing the MCAS as a condition to receive a high school diploma. It’s expected to pass easily. However, Governor Maura Healy, Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler are all opposed. They’ve mused publicly about “doing something” if voters can the MCAS.
Oh, and Mike Bloomberg dropped $2.5 million into the campaign to retain the requirement.
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