New York will dump its Regent exams. Will Illinois follow suit?
The New York State Education Department proposed Monday ending a requirement that students pass Regents exams to earn a high school diploma.
New York is among the last few states that require an exit exam to graduate high school.
In January, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, an organization that tracks testing policies and has often criticized standardized tests found that only eight states—Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming—still require the exams.
New Jersey rejoins that list this school year, as its exit exam requirement returns for the classes of 2024 and 2025 after a hiatus.
But those nine states are down from 13 in 2019 and from more than half of states in 2002.
The dropping of New York’s infamous Regents exams would definitely be a good thing.
The change comes after years of parental and educator criticism of the use of a single high stakes test to measure student achievement
Also on the table are proposals to offer only one type of New York diploma, rework credit requirements, and broaden the skills and knowledge students need to graduate.
The changes require a final approval by the Board of Regents before they can go into effect.
That will come later this year.
Recent media reports have suggested that the use of high stakes testing for admission to a colleges or universities are making a comeback.
That claim is questionable since 90% of colleges remain test optional or free.
Will Illinois follow New York’s lead in dropping requiring an exit exam to graduate high school?
Illinois high school juniors must take the ACT to fulfill graduationrequirements starting next spring.
School districts in the state have given high school juniors the SAT for almost a decade. Illinois switched from ACT to the SAT in 2016 and has renewed the contract with the College Board several times.