{"id":347846,"date":"2026-09-16T00:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/347846\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T00:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:18:08","slug":"plan-to-do-away-with-new-york-regents-exam-requirement-spurs-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/347846\/","title":{"rendered":"Plan to do away with New York Regents exam requirement spurs debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York State Board of Regents has approved a plan to begin overhauling high school graduation requirements<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It means students won’t need to pass Regents exams to earn a diploma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It has definitely been a topic of controversy among teachers, parents, students,” said John Murphy, principal of Walt Whitman High School on Long Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Passionate discussions are underway at the school in Huntington Station, as well as at others across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Regents have been around since the dawn of public education in New York state,” Murphy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starting next year, passing the Regents exams will no longer be required to earn a high school diploma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’ve seen other people cry about the Regents, scared if they don’t pass, they won’t graduate,” Walt Whitman senior Emely Aguilar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Board of Regents now wants a revamp<\/a>, to expand ways for students to demonstrate competency in a simpler, more equitable system. That system would include classroom assessments, performance-based learning, career-connected learning, internships, capstone projects, and interdisciplinary courses.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

“I don’t have confidence that many districts will actually maintain a high standard with these alternatives,” said Hofstra University professor Alan Singer, an education policy expert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Singer said he wonders how the state can monitor and assess, which are required by law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of pushing harder, some fear standards will be relaxed, but education activist Jeanette Deutermann calls it a victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The argument is that this lowers the bar. We are just saying we don’t want the standardized test to be the bar,” Deutermann said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Regents exams will continue to be offered on an optional basis. Those who pass will receive an advanced designation on their transcripts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I do think it’s a good measure of standardization where we have a hallmark for students to test their knowledge,” senior Carlos Morales said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new guidelines will be adopted next June. Meanwhile, the debate continues. A 60-day public comment period will start in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York State Board of Regents has approved a plan to begin overhauling high school graduation requirements.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-347846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347846","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=347846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}