“The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. . . . We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament,” (A Nation at Risk, 1983)
Five years ago I attended the first Graduation Measures meeting at Ft Hamilton High School, a few hundred parents, teachers, seated at tables and asked to answer “what we want students to know,” queries. My table, a superintendent, two parents and a teacher, we skipped the question and asked, “Is this the end of Regents exams?”
A few months later, COVID, and a two year hiatus. A 64 member Blue Ribbon Commission, a series of closed meetings, a majority report, a minority with no report, and, eventually a confusing next steps. See here
Regent exams will be voluntary. beginning in the 26-27 school year.
School districts will determine the replacement, maybe a Capstone Project, a Performance-Based Performance Task, Internship, or another method of assessing competence. Who determines the rubrics? Will rubrics be school or district-wide? Or, statewide? How will the State address interrater reliability across schools and districts? No answers, questions to be addressed by “the team.”
The US Department of Education requires one exam in English, Mathematics and Science in grade 9-12. Does the new policy conform with Fed regulations?
There is very little money set aside, who will pay for the creation and implementation of the new Graduation Measures?
And a few dozen other questions.
The state created a Portrait of a Graduate, I created a Portrait of a Dropout, Black and Latino graduation grade rates are 80%, white rate 91%
* high chronic absenteeism
* high course failure rate
* new migrant dropout rates among Latinos are above 50%
* The lower the per capita funding the higher the dropout rates
Do the Graduation Measures initiative address these issues?
There is an irony, in the 90s the business community complained too many high school graduates had limited literacy and numeracy skills. For decades there were two diplomas, the Regents Diploma for college bound students and General Diploma, also called the Regents Competency Test (RCT) Diploma, requiring a low skills test, if you failed a Regents you took the RCT a few data later, about 3/4 of the students received the local diploma.
The end users, employers, pushed and State Ed and the Board of Regents debated for two years and moved to a single Regents diploma, a highly controversial decision. The plan: dropped the passing score to 55 and required students to pass an additional exam with a score of 65 each year, phase in the program over five years, it took ten years. The two-day English exam was reduced to one day. The Global Studies exam had covered 9th and 10th grade was reduced to 10th grade only, the exams were made untimed, there had been a three hour limit. If a student with disabilities passed the course and could not pass the Regents exam a superintendent’s determination could be used in lieu of the exam. As I mentioned above the statewide high school graduation rate is 87%, 91% for White students and 80% for Black and Latino students,
In the vast majority of high schools a teacher course load is five classes a day and 25 students per class: 125 students. How can a teacher supervise, mentor, meet with 125 students? Did the “team” that wrote the plan include classroom teachers?
Down the road will the next generation of employers ask the Board of Regents to address the low level of literacy and numeracy skills of high school graduates?
Of course with Elon Musk in charge every kid might have a personal chatbot and we flesh and blood teachers may be just a memory.
Ed in the Apple: Blogging on the Intersection of Education and Politics Title 