Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.
New York City high school juniors, do you know what you’ll need to get a diploma next year?
If state officials move ahead with a plan to scrap Regents exams as graduation requirements in June, you won’t need to pass those tests anymore. But the city won’t yet have new assessments in place.
That means students in the Class of 2028 would only need to pass their required classes to graduate, a city Education Department official said this week.
The same graduation rules would apply to current high school freshmen and sophomores, an Education Department spokesperson confirmed. Last school year, there were roughly 212,000 students in grades 9-11 in city public high schools, according to city data.
The remarks at a Tuesday City Council hearing offered the most clarity to date on what city schools and students can expect during the “purgatory period” between the expected end of the Regents graduation requirement next year and the implementation of new graduation requirements for the Class of 2031. Those changes will bring new credit requirements, a new diploma, and different kinds of assessments to measure the six qualities state officials say every student needs to graduate. But what those assessments will look like is not yet clear.
“We’re not expected next year to stand up a one-for-one replacement for the Regents exams,” Katie Hansen, the Education Department’s executive director of academic policy and systems, said during the public hearing.
If the state votes to eliminate the Regents requirement in June 2027, next year’s seniors will graduate if they complete their 44 required credits, Hansen added.
“Within that, there’s of course many ways of showing their learning to earn their credit,” she said, “but there won’t be a separate system of assessments that students have to complete to meet graduation requirements.”
Students will continue taking Regents exams as part of the state’s federal requirement. They can use their scores to get an advanced designation on their diploma, but they won’t need to pass the tests to graduate, officials said.
The shift to a credit-based graduation system would temporarily return the city to the emergency policy that state officials adopted during the COVID pandemic, when many Regents exams were canceled and students could satisfy graduation requirements by passing the course tied to the exam. That shift significantly boosted graduation rates for students with disabilities and students learning English, but sparked concern among some advocates that students were graduating without the knowledge and skills they need.
Eric Dinowitz, the chair of the City Council’s education committee and a former Bronx high school teacher who said he supported the broader idea of shifting away from the Regents requirements, expressed concern that the interim period could turn into a graduation free-for-all.
“Without a replacement of equal or more rigor, it’s going to turn into a checklist,” he said. Education Department leaders “might say we’re getting pressure to increase our graduation rates, just do whatever you can to pass the kid.”
Advocates warn against ditching Regents before new assessments are ready
State education officials have been working for years on a plan to phase out the Regents requirements — one of the few remaining test-based graduation requirements in the country. Officials have argued that the exam requirements don’t meaningfully improve student learning, can impede the most vulnerable students, and unnecessarily restrict what schools can teach.
In the long term, state officials are asking districts to design their own alternative assessments to measure the six core skills students will need after graduation, including being critical thinkers and global citizens — what the state calls the “Portrait of a Graduate.” Examples could include capstone presentations or other performance-based assessments used by the city’s “consortium” schools, vocational certifications that show knowledge of a specific skill, or completion of rigorous programs like the International Baccalaureate or college-level courses.
But those new assessment systems are expected to take years to create.
In the meantime, state officials have offered little guidance on how districts and schools should measure whether students are ready to graduate when Regents exams are no longer required.
Earlier this month, state officials said districts will come up with their own “assessment strategies” to test students while the new requirements are phasing in.
JP O’Hare, a spokesperson for the state Education Department, described the changes as “intentionally a phased transition.” He said state learning standards, current credit requirements, local assessments, and statewide accountability will remain in place while the department works with districts to fully implement the Portrait of a Graduate.
State officials have offered some broad guidance about creating assessment strategies and say there is more to come.
Zachary Warner, the assistant commissioner in the Office of State Assessment, encouraged districts and schools in a February webinar to begin experimenting with new kinds of assessments now rather than “waiting to start until we have everything perfectly in place.”
But advocates said that guidance is coming too late — and questioned why state officials are lifting the Regents requirement before a new assessment system is developed.
“Until there’s that clarity, until districts have local assessment strategies in place, it makes no sense to get rid of the Regents exam requirement,” said Jeff Smink, the deputy director of policy and advocacy for Ed-Trust New York.
The short-term changes could “make it look like more students are graduating,” he added, “but we’re going to have even less of an idea if they’re actually prepared or not.”
Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.
