{"id":347008,"date":"2026-09-15T03:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/347008\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T03:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T03:08:10","slug":"new-york-makes-it-official-our-high-school-diploma-is-worthless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/347008\/","title":{"rendered":"New York makes it official: Our high school diploma is worthless"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York\u2019s race to the bottom in education continued apace Monday, as the Board of Regents scrapped the requirement<\/a> that the state\u2019s high schoolers actually learn something to graduate.<\/p>\n

For 30 years, students needed to pass at least four Regents exams \u2014\u00a0in math, English, science and Global Studies<\/a> \u2014 to earn a diploma. To be clear, this standard was the barest minimum. The governing board kept lowering the score needed to pass the tests, watering down the results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it was something: A tangible requirement <\/a>\u2014 a\u00a0responsibility\u00a0\u2014 that showed we as a state cared about accountability.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly\u00a0the word that the Teachers Union hates. It meant parents and politicians would start to question why a whopping 15%-20% of students didn\u2019t meet graduation requirements. Testing highlighted bad instructors and bad schools. As usual, COVID is partly to blame here. The Regents board \u201ctemporarily\u201d lifted\u00a0requirements during the pandemic, and graduation rates rose to 87% in 2022. When the Regents tests returned, the state rate fell to 85%. The city\u2019s: 81%. It was the\u00a0largest year over year percentage drop in 20 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This embarrassment could not stand. And so, under pressure from the unions and Democratic officials, gone are the tests.\u00a0Beginning with the class of 2028, graduates need only show \u201ccritical thinking.\u201d If that sounds vague, that\u2019s because the Regents Board has set no standards yet. They never will. Our schools, already<\/a> diploma factories that pass students who don\u2019t even attend class, will give a worthless piece of paper to anyone who asks.<\/p>\n

This is why families are fleeing to charter schools, to private schools<\/a>, to home schooling, to schools out of state. Because New York public school officials don\u2019t have the courage to demand achievement. They hold our children in contempt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is the bigotry of low expectations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s race to the bottom in education continued apace Monday, as the Board of Regents scrapped the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9118,4337,304,67,44771,11182,9,11,10,299],"class_list":["post-347008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-board-of-regents","tag-department-of-education","tag-editorial","tag-education","tag-graduation","tag-high-schools","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}