By Kathleen Moore
Albany Times Union

In just two years, New York state public high schools will transform.

Rather than preparing students to pass an exam, teachers might lead students to improve their neighborhood through civics projects or teach them to design computer apps or build robots to master mathematical concepts.

Or schools might become diploma mills, with some districts highly desired not because of their educational prowess, but their ability to graduate any warm body.

Students who start high school in 2027 will no longer have to pass any Regents exams to earn their diplomas. (Students will, however, have to continue taking the exams to meet a federal testing requirement.) Instead of proving mastery on four Regents exams, for English, math, science and Social Studies, they will be able to show their skills in non-test ways.

What will those ways be? Educators are trying to tackle that question, develop new curricula and set up grading systems before time runs out. But much of the planning, district officials say, hinges on yet-to-be-released state Education Department guidance.

Certain school districts across the state have already begun a pilot program to develop various ways of assessing students without a test. Many other districts are also starting to work on the issue, saying they don’t have time to wait. These districts are writing the criteria for “alternative assessments” for each core class. The criteria will say clearly what a student must show they can do. Teachers can use that to grade non-test work.

It will take months — possibly more than a year — to develop those, school officials said.

The new diplomas require every student to take a Career and Technical Education class. That’s going to require districts to add classes that take up a lot of room, often include expensive machinery and require specialized teachers. It’s not something that can be done in a summer — it needs to be in the budget and planned for, school officials explained.

The possibilities are exciting — and vague. School officials are worried.

“No one wants to have the perception of being a diploma mill, that it’s easier to graduate from” some districts than others, said Albany Superintendent Joseph Hochreiter.

“What flexibility do we really have?” Hochreiter asked. “You have to work with a high level of trust that what Albany’s doing is within one standard deviation of what they’re doing in Erie.”

Many superintendents pressed for this change, saying that there are students who know the material but don’t do well on high-stakes tests, and that, in some cases, education is better with big projects rather than a test. They celebrated the Board of Regents’ decision to drop the exam requirement.

“Now the work begins,” Hochreiter said. “Some of the challenge is how we’ve been wired for decades: we relied on the Regents as a universal indicator. As much as superintendents were cheerleading the committee (that proposed dropping exams), there were also some who were a little scared, because we lost our North Star.”

The new flexibility is being welcomed by some, who see it as a way to make time for more useful skills than memorizing facts for an exam.

Generation Citizen, a nonprofit based in New York, has a 15-week civics program that leads high school students to identify a problem, research it and take steps to solve it. The group’s curriculum has led to 1,400 civics projects throughout the country in the last 15 years.

Usually, Social Studies teachers squeeze it in amid preparation for the U.S. History and Global History Regents exams. But without the pressure of knowing students must pass one of those tests to graduate, more teachers might embrace the program.

“Sunsetting Regents as a requirement gives teachers a chance to have an expanded set of portfolio-based, project-based (classes),” said Generation Citizen’s Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer Andrew Wilkes.

Having time is crucial for civics, he said.

“We view civics like a science lab,” he said. “In the same way students learn science from being in a lab, they learn civics by doing civics.”

In one instance, a New York City class researched and then successfully lobbied for Halal food to be added to the city’s school food options for their civics project. That process — from gathering data to figuring out how to persuade the right people to make a change — is what prepares students for life in a democracy, Wilkes said.

The new graduation requirements will include becoming a civic and global “contributor.”

Lack of clarity

The state Education Department published a chart online that outlines when new rules would go into effect, including the 2027 end to requiring students to pass the Regents exams. But the chart is labeled as a draft, awaiting Board of Regents approval. Other documents from the state refer to 2027 as a definite deadline.

Other items that are still uncertain include how students will meet the looser “portrait of a graduate” standards (such as becoming a civic and global contributor) and even when those standards will go into effect. The draft chart says 2029.

The new requirements might also allow districts to change the core classes, replacing Algebra I with a statistics class or other math topics, chosen by the student. 

Hochreiter wants the flexibility to have students learn math through another course, rather than teaching every student algebra.

“If they are taking engineering, shouldn’t we be teaching math in engineering?” he said.

But there are no answers from the Education Department on that yet, either. The department also declined an interview request on the topic.

School officials said the state needs to give them clear information — and soon, if they want to meet the 2027 deadline.

Read the full story at timesunion.com