Another year without them raises question
Sophie Grosserode – Rockland/Westchester Journal News USA TODAY NETWORK – in the D&C on 3/24/21
New York will soon graduate its second class of high school seniors exempt from passing Regents exams, a shakeup that has many asking if the Empire State’s trademark exams should return post-pandemic.
The immediate future of the Regents exams is not something the Board of Regents – which sets state education policy, as well as lending the tests their name – has formally discussed, said Regent Fran Wills, who represents the Lower Hudson Valley.
But questions about the exams’ long-term future were on the table before the pandemic convinced the state to allow students to get graduation credit for Regents courses, last year and again this year, without taking the exams.
The Board of Regents began a major review in 2019 of what high school graduation requirements should look like going forward, with an eye on supplementing or replacing the Regents exams as key measures of what students know. The project was dropped last year because of the pandemic.