Posted on 09/16/2026 9:32:09 AM PDT by grundle
For more than 30 years, the path to high school graduation in New York State has required Regents exams, the rigorous end-of-year tests that have determined whether students receive a diploma.
The New York State Board of Regents, the governing body for its schools, voted on Monday to take a major step in its yearslong plan to phase out the exam as a graduation requirement, a far-reaching overhaul intended to eliminate barriers to graduation for some students.
The changes represent New York’s most substantial education policy overhaul in decades, a sweeping rethinking of student expectations and diploma requirements in a state long held up as a model of rigorous graduation standards.
“For years, we looked at what elite private schools provide to their students,” Dr. Betty A. Rosa, the state’s education commissioner, said at a Board of Regents meeting on Tuesday. “and they don’t worry about the Regents exams.”
Some education groups expressed concern about the shift away from the exams, saying that making them optional could water down academic standards and would not result in students being better prepared for college or careers.
“New York should not tear down the measuring stick before it builds a better one,” EdTrust-New York, an education advocacy group, said in a statement.
The first version of the Regents exams was introduced at the end of the Civil War, and the tests became a requirement for graduation in the mid-1990s, when they were made mandatory in an effort to raise standards. Today, the three-hour exams are so woven into the fabric of high school life that some students had to miss this year’s Knicks ticker-tape parade because it conflicted with state science exams.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Failure is to be aplauded.
They already graduate illiterates by the droves. Who cares about this test? It obviously doesn’t help.
Certificates of Attendance.................
The dumbing down of education continues apace. And we all know why.
I remember when the Job/Career sites began expunging their skills tests from job seekers because a certain contingent wasn’t doing well enough after the George Floyd fiasco.
Stupid is as stupid does.
The dumbing down continues. A trophy for you, and one for you, and you get one too!
It is the feminization of society...participation trophies, everyone is great, it’s not your fault, no accountability...
Making concessions for the stupid kids.
and activist "teachers".
“For years, we looked at what elite private schools provide to their students..and they don’t worry about the Regents exams.”
Everyone knows the answer as to why the Regents exams are being eliminated. They can be dumbed down only so much.
This all started with forced desegregation “bussing” many decades ago. The academic standards immediately dropped, by necessity. Couldn’t have blacks doing poorly against white students in the same class, could we?
its a true statement - but only a half-truth, made with devious intent
So-called "elite private schools," even when I was a teen, saw NY Regents as a mere "baseline," only to meet NY State requirements. My school, for example, pushed students to complete A/P exams in English, History, calculus and other additional areas students / parents might choose.
Removing Regents Testing is purely a typical woke, educrat, political decision - they will need to both keep "dumbing down" the Regents exam, and explain away the embarrassment of increasing failure rates - so of course they prefer to simply eliminate it entirely.
You nailed it.
During Abbott’s bussing of illegals into New York, so-called “schools” were turned into dormitories for illegals. They weren’t being used for education, so what was the point. Also, massive money could be siphoned “for the children” to recover what was destroyed.
Lazy kids. They are smart enough to know they can get through High School without doing anything other than showing up a couple of times a week.
"More flexible local assessment strategies" -- Typical bullshit.
We don’t have education, we have a schooling industry.
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