Here’s how NY Regents exams, high school grad requirements could change
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat and has been lightly edited for AmNews style. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
The Regents exams, a rite of passage for New York students for more than a century, aren’t going anywhere, but high school seniors in the coming years could see a big shift in what’s needed to graduate, with a slew of additional options to demonstrate mastery, as well as new subjects that could count toward their diplomas, including civic responsibility, financial literacy, and the arts.
A 64-member Blue Ribbon Commission, tasked more than a year ago with rethinking what knowledge and skills high schoolers should be required to know upon graduation, released its findings to the state’s Board of Regents on Monday.
Among its 12 recommendations is a move to further increase the number of assessment options beyond the Regents exams, offering students other ways to demonstrate their learning, such as performance-based assessments, capstone projects, and experiential learning. Other suggestions include broadening access to career and technical education, better aligning the state’s learning standards with college and career expectations, and enshrining instruction in culturally responsive-sustaining education practices in teacher preparation programs.
The recommendations also call for additional credit requirements in subjects like civic responsibility, cultural competence, financial literacy, and more.
But it may be some time before any of the recommendations are adopted.
In a press briefing last week, State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa called the report “a blueprint,” adding, “The real work starts with the design.”
State officials plan to take a “deeper dive” into each recommendation this summer, with hopes of developing timelines for implementation in the fall, she said.
State officials have debated future of Regents for years
The commission launched in 2022 after years of discussion about whether and how New York’s graduation policies should change.
In 2019, Rosa — then Chancellor of the Board of Regents — called for revising the state’s graduation requirements. She pointed to “stubborn gaps in achievement” that persisted between students of color, those with disabilities, English language learners, and those from low-income backgrounds, compared with their white and more affluent peers.
Rosa is looking forward to a future of graduation assessments that are expansive—offering more options to students who may have struggled with the more traditional exams, she told reporters last week.
She hopes the new recommendations will establish a more inclusive learning environment, while building more opportunities for work-based learning and college readiness. She wants to move away from a “one-size-fits-all approach” and toward something “nurtures” students’ differences.
“Our students have different ways of demonstrating their knowledge,” she said. “What we want to do is uplift that.”
The future of Regents exams
The process of rethinking the state’s graduation requirements initially sparked speculation over the potential end of New York’s Regents exams, which have been offered since the 1870s and have been required of most students to earn their diplomas.
New York is one of a handful of states that still require exit exams, although research has found little evidence to show such exams improve student achievement.
Over the past year, the commission reviewed the state’s graduation requirements, as well as research findings, workforce trends, and community input. Members also considered graduation requirements, assessment options, apprenticeship models, and educational policies in other states and countries.
Parents and students involved in the process called for more flexibility in credit requirements and testing, according to the report. Many students reported feeling the Regents exams were not sufficient measures of student learning and called for more project-based forms of assessments, as well as the option to replace the state tests with Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams.
Angelique Johnson-Dingle, deputy commissioner of P–12 instructional support, said the state’s Education Department is already working to identify such alternative options and pathways for students.
“We have students that suffer with test anxiety that at times makes it difficult for them to be able to truly show everything that they’ve learned,” she said. “This is just one way to help those students—to give them another option to be able to meet the requirements of high school graduation.”
Some schools have already embraced alternative options. New York City already has nearly 40 schools that are part of a “performance standards consortium” and receive waivers from the state to forgo Regents exams, and instead have students work on projects or experiments and present their findings to a panel of educators and experts in what’s known as a “performance-based assessment.”
The commission’s recommendations also call for the number of diploma types to be reduced from three to one, while offering options to add seals or endorsements. Currently, the state doles out local, Regents, and Regents with advanced designation diplomas, which vary based on the number of assessments a student passed and the required passing scores.
In the report, commission members also developed a “portrait of a graduate,” or a set of attributes that New Yorkers should demonstrate upon graduation. Those included critical thinking, effective communication, cultural and social-emotional competencies, innovative problem-solving, literacy across content areas, and a status as a “global citizen.”
The portrait will serve as the “North Star” of the state education system, according to the report.
Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.
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