The following is via WABC:
The New York State education department is considering whether to eliminate Regents exams as a requirement to graduate high school.
The state-wide standardized tests designed to measure achievement in high school-level courses.
In order to graduate high school, New York State students must pass Regents exams in five subjects: English Language Arts, math, science, social studies, and any additional option provided by the state.
Some members of the board of Regents, however, have been questioning the exams’ purpose. They said eliminating them could improve graduation rates.
“It will be a difficult conversation for New Yorkers. But I and other Regents view it as essential,” Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa said.
The matter is expected to be further discussed at a meeting this fall.
(Source: WABC)
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11 Responses
As a retired NYC math teacher, I can tell you that the math regent exams are a waste of time. They do not tell you if the student is proficient in math. All a student needs to pass is to get 15 questions on Part 1 correct (at 2 pts each), and not answer any other questions correctly, and according to the ‘curve’, they pass. 30 pts out of 87 (I don’t know why not a total of 100) = 65. They passed. Why bother giving the regents? They ‘watered’ it down so much in the last 20 years, that it is a worthless test.
As usual, YWN has a misleading headline. The article says they want to consider whether to eliminate the graduation requirement of passing grades in five Regents exams, not to eliminate Regents exams altogether. It’s only in recent years that it has been required to pass Regents exams to graduate. I guess they’ve determined that even with the dumbed-down Regents exams of recent years, the pass rate is unacceptably low.
@yehudayona
I guess over 15 years is recent?!?!?!?!!
Where ya from
Way back when I went to school Regents exams were only required to get a Regents diploma. Many students opted to take non regents math and science classes and still received diplomas.
I wonder how the students of the frum NY community score on their regents compared to the public school students?
The exams serious discriminate against students who unprepared and unqualified, and whose schools did a poor job preparing them. They also discriminate in favor of students who went to good schools, and who worked on their own to prepare themselves.
It should be noted that most of the country relies on the ACT and SAT and not state administered exams.
@akuperma – What does an exam used by colleges to determine acceptability into their schools, which is what the SAT and ACT are, have to do with state mandated exams and state graduation requirements?
If the tests are skewed towards proficiency by kids in more affluent schools with better preparation than fix the schools rather than dumbing down or eliminating the tests. Are we at a point where you get a HS diploma just by showing up at school? Even the latter may not work since these same students who fail the Regents Exams often have the lowest attendance rates.
“Some members of the board of Regents, however, have been questioning the exams’ purpose. They said eliminating them could improve graduation rates.”
Well, yeah. Probably learning less will improve graduation rates even more.
The main reason to eliminate them is almost certainly to accommodate illegals.
I am seriously contemplating going to live in Mexico for a while then coming back across the border illegally….
Of course Regents should be eliminated! Most public school students can’t even manage to “pass’ with a standard score of 30! Pathetic!! Maryellen Elia should take lessons from our Yeshivos on how to teach the material correctly.
The Democrats believe in and hire strictly on affirmative action so the regents are irrelevant anyways. If you’ve got the right skin color and the right sexual orientation, you’ll get places in life.