NYS plans to eliminate Regents exam requirements for students

Pencils down? New York State may soon eliminate Regents exam requirements for high school students.

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Regents exam requirements could soon be a thing of the past in New York State.

The state Education Department (NYSED) released a plan Monday — ironically just as high school students are preparing for and taking end-of-year exams — to nullify the mandate that high school students take the tests, based on recommendations of the NYS Blue Ribbon Committee on Graduation Measures.

“NYSED recommends that specific assessment requirements be separated from graduation requirements. This means that students no longer have to pass the Regents exams,” the plan states.

The Board of Regents, which is separate from NYSED, must still approve the plan. Students still have to take the Regents exams scheduled for this month. Those tests start Friday, June 14.

If the requirement disappears, Regents testing would remain an option for students who want to demonstrate they are meeting state learning standards.

Currently, New York students earn one of three types of high school diplomas when they graduate: a Regents diploma, an advanced Regents diploma or a local diploma. Students must earn a minimum score of 65 on five state exams to earn a standard Regents diploma.

All three options are valid high school diplomas. With the elimination of the regents, the state would move to offering only one diploma.

The proposal to eliminate Regents is part of the NYSED’s broader vision to transform the state’s degree requirement.

Another proposed change is to adopt the NYS “portrait of a graduate,” which state officials say is intended to showcase what students have internalized during their high school academic experience.

To earn a high school diploma, students must demonstrate proficiency in each component of the portrait, including critical thinking, innovative problem solving, and literacy in all content areas.

They should also be “culturally competent, socially-emotionally competent, effective communicators and global citizens,” according to the plan.

“The education transformation we envision reflects the thoughtful input we have received from our stakeholders, especially from public school students and their families,” said NYSED Commissioner Betty Rosa. “It takes an incredible amount of time, work and collective effort to transform an education system, and we won’t stop working until we get the job done right for all New Yorkers.”

Critics and supporters are doing their best

Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York (AFC), an organization that helps low-income students, said the Regents exams are not only unnecessary but can be “harmful” to students.

“Exit exam policies like New York’s have caused significant harm to young people while failing to achieve their intended goal of improving the quality of teaching and learning,” Sweet said.

Sweet added that the Regents’ policy does not support students struggling with standardized tests.

“At AFC, we routinely work with students, many of whom have disabilities or are still learning English, who have completed their coursework but are unable to obtain a high school diploma because they struggle with standardized assessments, sometimes taking half an exam. -ten times to try to increase their score by just a few points,” she added. “By giving young people the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and knowledge in multiple ways without having to take high-stakes exams, our state’s education system will meet the needs of today’s students. “

Other education experts are more critical of the change in policy, including Andy Lockwood, CEO and co-founder of Lockwood College Prep.

“I’m against eliminating the Regents because there’s already so much grade inflation in schools that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to figure out if kids are eligible to do college work,” he said.

While Lockwood admits that standardized tests are not perfect, he added that they help teachers determine how well students have learned subjects.

“The more you take away from these standardized tests that are supposed to create a level playing field, the harder it is to determine whether a child is getting enough of the required curriculum in all the core subjects under his or her belt,” he says. added.

Alan Singer, professor of education at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., said Regents exams are useful because they provide teachers with student expectations that help develop lessons and curriculum.

“Without exams, or with exams but no requirement that students pass to graduate, what is taught in social studies, history and civics will vary from school to school and from class to class,” Singer said. “This is a disaster in an already atomized society where there is sharp disagreement about the meaning of the past and the problems the country faces today. In successive subjects like math, students are moved on to more difficult classes without any evidence that they have mastered the previous work.”

NYSED will hold a series of public forums between July and October to get feedback before presenting an official proposal with a timeline and considerations to the Board of Regents in November.