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New York state is poised to toss aside its proud history of expecting achievement from its high school students by eliminating the Regents exams that, for more than a century, have been required to earn a diploma.
Why get rid of Regents standards now? Why, “equity,” of course.
As Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said in announcing the decision, the “New York State diploma should signify . . . equity for all students.”
Rosa emphasized her department’s “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion” and a “Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework” that was developed to “create true equity in New York State’s public education.”
There’s no longer any way to cover up the fact that “equity” in the hands of union-friendly, merit-adverse education apparatchiks means lower standards and no accountability.
With an able assist from ideologues like “anti-racist” Regent Shino Tanikawa, the State Education Department is now on the verge of scrapping a long and worthwhile history of expecting graduates to master core academic subject areas by the time they leave high school.
It’s a sad day for New York public school students.
The Regents tests, first administered in 1866, have covered a wide range of coursework over the years, and New York is one of only a few states with exam-based high school graduation standards.
New York education “leaders” have been dumbing down standards and removing accelerated academic pathways for public school students for decades, but SED started laying the groundwork for its current effort in 2019 with its “Graduation Measures Initiative” — a mess of typical leftist gobbledygook.
Instead of asking students to learn subject matter well enough to pass moderately tough exams, SED now proposes a silly-sounding “Portrait of a Graduate” metric that replaces tests with fuzzy measurements judging students as “culturally competent, socially-emotionally competent, effective communicators and global citizens.”
New York high schoolers will show they are diploma-worthy with proficiency in soft, impossible-to-measure “service-based learning experiences” and “participation in the arts.”
One can already visualize the pro-Palestinian service-based art project that will substitute for passing an algebra Regents.
Rosa claimed she consulted an “incredibly diverse group of expert practitioners and the public” including “public school students and their families” to come up with this scheme.
But pro-merit, standardized-test-supporting students and families were, as usual, iced out of SED’s outreach.
PLACE NYC, which advocates for merit-based admissions and stronger academic standards, won 40% of the parent-elected seats in last year’s city Community Education Council elections, including the majority of seats in several active councils and all the open seats on the Citywide Council for High Schools.
But PLACE parents were never invited to the “incredibly diverse group” that Rosa said she convened.
The time frame of a promised parent-engagement process presenting the new rules is a dead giveaway that Rosa and Tanikawa don’t want to hear from parents who demand higher standards and more accountability.
These “ambassador forums” will be held from July to October. But most public school parents get their information from their PTAs — which don’t operate in two of those months.
By the time families return to school and PTAs swing back into action, the “engagement” process will be drawing to a close.
The move to toss standards and make graduation easier is a core part of the “anti-racist” toolbox — but it’s grounded in the ugliest kind of racism.
Black students, the state seems to believe, are oppressed by the omnipresent white supremacy that its new “education framework” sees everywhere and that provides the equity justification for scrapping exams.
Disadvantaged students up against the bigotry of low expectations will find that removing the Regents only sets those expectations lower.
Nowhere do these proposed changes insist that all New York high school graduates be proficient in basic areas such as English, science, algebra and social studies — the current required Regents tests that are being rendered “optional.”
Of course, some students will take those optional exams — and the divide between the students-who-excel and the students-left-behind will continue to grow.
All New York students deserve the challenge and support of high expectations, exam-based graduation standards and teachers who are up to the task of preparing them for tests.
Removing the Regents requirements for graduation does them a tremendous disservice.
Maud Maron is an NYC public school parent and president of the consulting firm ThirdRail.
