Goodbye Regents Exams?

Kusha Navadar (0:10)

It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Kusha Navadar filling in for Brian today. We're turning now to a conversation about the New York State Regents Exam, which is a high school graduation requirement for most public school students in the state.

The state plans to phase out the exams entirely by the time that the class of 2028, who are juniors in high school right now, finish high school. But according to teachers, there are still a bunch of questions to be answered, like what will the transition look like? What's going to replace the exams? And how should they be teaching differently to adhere to what the new requirements will be?

The Board of Regents held a vote last Monday that gives the Education Department the green light to start drafting and implementing new curricula regulations. But as the school year kicks into full gear, educators are still pretty unclear about what standards their students will have to meet in order to graduate. So my guest today is Michael Elsen-Rooney, a reporter at Chalkbeat New York, excuse me, who's been covering the state's transition away from Regents exams. And Michael, thanks so much for joining us.

Michael Elsen-Rooney (1:25)

Thanks for having me.

Kusha Navadar (1:26)

So listeners, we're inviting you into this conversation. Are you a teacher with strong opinions about the end of Regents exams? Do you think they should go away but aren't really sure what should take its place? Or maybe you do have an idea for what a new system should look like. Give us a call at 212-433-9692.

That's 212-433-WNYC.

We're also looking to hear from parents and students about what you think about the state getting rid of the exams. For 9th graders, 10th graders, 11th graders, what are your teachers telling you about the new graduation requirements? What are they going to look like? Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. 212-433-9692. You can text us, you can call us. I'm hoping that you can give us Michael a little bit of context for this latest move. What gives? Why did the state decide to get rid of the Regents?

Michael Elsen-Rooney (2:21)

Yeah, so this has been a process that's unfolded over several years now. And you know, state officials said years ago that they don't believe that the Regents exams are really a fair or an accurate measure of whether students are really ready to graduate into the world.

You know, I think there's a hope with these end of high school exams that they're going to kind of create the incentives for students to achieve more, that they're going to confer kind of an additional value on the high school diploma if employers and colleges know this is something that was really rigorous. But I think the reality is that the research has not really found that those exams work in the way that they're intended to. And often, they can end up being a barrier for vulnerable students who, for different reasons, are just not equipped to pass those kinds of exams, but maybe should have other ways of graduating. So I think that's the real concern. Obviously, the question is, how do you create a system that replaces that? And that's a really complicated question.

Kusha Navadar (3:32)

Oh, I'm hoping you can dive into it with me right now, because that's what I'm wondering, like what's the shift in educational approach that they are going for to better get folks ready to go out into the world?

Michael Elsen-Rooney (3:46)

Yeah, so I'll give you the basics. So what they tried to come up with first is what they call a portrait of a graduate, and that is like, what are the qualities that we want New York students to leave high school and go out into the world with? And so, you know, they came up with six different qualities, and it's, you know, critical thinking and innovating, and let me see if I can find the other ones.

Being academically prepared, being a global citizen, and an effective communicator. So the problem is, you know, those are really broad qualities and how do you assess those? And so, you know, the state has really not delved into the specifics of what that's going to look like, and that's created a fair amount of anxiety, I think, for schools, for some families, for administrators. But it seems like districts are really going to have a fair amount of latitude to kind of come up with systems that work. And, you know, we can talk about some of what those alternative systems might look like.

Kusha Navadar (4:53)

So there's, what you said before is that there's this shift to competency-based model. Is that what you're talking about with the portrait of graduate, that they are a critical thinker, that they innovate academically prepared, but good at communicating? Is that what competency-based means?