New York state once believed poor children could meet high expectations.<\/p>\n
This week, the Board of Regents showed just how far Albany has retreated from that conviction when it chose to further erode <\/a>the state\u2019s high-school graduation requirements.<\/p>\n Hearing the news recalled my experience a few months ago, as I discussed education as a guest on an NPR talk show in Albany.<\/p>\n When I mentioned that Mississippi has become a national model for improving children\u2019s literacy, my fellow panelists laughed out loud.<\/p>\n These weren\u2019t know-nothings, but academics, journalists and public-policy professionals.<\/p>\n Yet they were incredulous: What could New York\u00a0possibly\u00a0have to learn from a backward state like Mississippi?<\/p>\n Quite a lot, as it happens.<\/p>\n On the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation\u2019s report card, Mississippi\u2019s fourth-graders outperformed ours in reading<\/a>.<\/p>\n Black and Hispanic fourth-graders there scored much higher<\/a> than their peers in New York, even though Mississippi spends a fraction of what we do on public education.<\/p>\n For generations, New York boasted of the seriousness of its educational institutions.<\/p>\n We built one of America\u2019s great public university systems and some of its most selective public high schools.<\/p>\n Our state Board of Regents predates the US Constitution.<\/p>\n That seriousness was still very much alive when I became a fifth-grade teacher in the South Bronx in 2002, soon after Michael Bloomberg won mayoral control of the schools.<\/p>\n Under Chancellor Joel Klein, charter schools were welcomed with open arms.<\/p>\n Philanthropists and education entrepreneurs flocked to a New York that was determined to become a national center of education reform.<\/p>\n Underlying it was a bedrock belief that poor children can achieve at high levels.<\/p>\n Poverty made education more difficult, but did not excuse failure.<\/p>\n When students weren\u2019t learning, the proper response was better teaching, stronger schools and higher expectations.<\/p>\n That idea has fallen entirely out of fashion \u2014 and today, New York\u2019s academic results are stubbornly mediocre.<\/p>\n Worse, Albany has spent much of the past two decades weakening expectations and abandoning accountability mechanisms designed to produce better results.<\/p>\n The state expanded appeals and alternative pathways around graduation requirements.<\/p>\n By 2018, nearly half of NYC high schools were using \u201ccredit recovery\u201d programs for students who\u2019d failed or never completed required courses.<\/p>\n Incredibly, the state eliminated a basic literacy skills test for prospective teachers in 2017 and certification requirements five years later.<\/p>\n A restrictive cap<\/a> prohibits any new charters in New York City, despite their popularity and track record of success.<\/p>\n And this week, the state Board of Regents accelerated the decline.<\/p>\n