The New York State Education Department recently announced that Regents exams may no longer be required in order to graduate high school. This change will be finalized closer to 2027 and, if approved, will go into effect in the 2027-2028 school year.
Regents are standardized tests in a variety of math, science, and humanities topics that New York high schoolers must take. Students will still be required to take the exams in accordance with certain federal requirements and may still use those exams to fulfill graduation requirements, but other options will be made available for students who feel they can better demonstrate academic proficiency another way.
This is part of a larger rehaul of high school education and graduation requirements known as the new “New York State Portrait of a Graduate,” and may include the opportunity to participate in internships, capstone projects, and community service as opposed to passing Regents exams.
Though not a new graduation requirement, NY high schools will also soon be mandated to teach financial literacy and climate awareness to students as part of this Portrait of a Graduate.
These changes provoked very mixed responses. Some said this would remove a barrier to graduation for certain students such as those with learning disabilities, while others argued that this would disproportionately harm underperforming students by reducing the rigor of their classwork and decreasing the quality of their education.
BSGE students had similarly varied opinions on the topic. “I’m very disappointed, I would have to say…I don’t know why we would have gone so far and improved education for so many people just to go back,” says 8th grader Frank when asked about his feelings on the issue.
Frank believes that while BSGE will fare well due to its IB diploma program, most other schools without a current emphasis on an alternative curriculum will struggle to maintain the same levels of rigor that were previously enforced.
10th grader Shatarupa, on the other hand, felt the new policy was an “improvement” because “students can show more of how they are to college[s] rather than just their test scores,” adding that “this can especially help people [who] are bad test takers.”
In her eyes, reducing the importance of the Regents exams will grant teachers more flexibility in their curriculum design, potentially ushering an era of more creative and project-based learning.
Despite differences in overall opinion, however, the vast majority of those interviewed worried that students who were already less intrinsically academically motivated may feel less incentivized to study for end-of-year exams, focusing instead on less academically rigorous activities.
Another issue that needs to be addressed when evaluating the NYS Portrait of a Graduate is the cost. NYSED plans to spend about $2.3 million per year for five years on the development and implementation of the new requirements, which they have already warned will likely not be enough. This means yet another strain on NYC public schools’ already thin-stretched budgets.
This change represents a new era in NYS public education and may fundamentally alter the American public school system as we know it. Whether this is for better or for worse has not yet been determined, but we will soon see the impact of this decision on our youth, as even the current BSGE middle schoolers will be heavily impacted by the new policy down the line.