(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . New York on the Verge of Educational Malpractice [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-12 The New York State Board of Regents and its Department of Education are failing the test and students. The Education Department proposed that the Regents, the state’s educational governing body, eliminate passing end-of-course “Regents” exams as a requirement to earn a high school academic diploma. It also wants to change diploma designations so there is only one universal diploma. The Education Department plans to conduct public hearings between July and October on its proposals. It will forward them to the Board of Regents for its November where the Regents are expected to approve the changes. Currently, students currently must pass a minimum of four Regents exams, one in math, one in science, an English exam, and one in social studies, plus an additional exam or a state-approved alternative assessment. New York is one of nine states that require students pass content area exams to earn a diploma. Representatives of the Department of Education claim they want to move away from a test-driven curriculum, broaden what students are taught, have more accurate assessments of student learning, and better prepare students for the 21st century. However, the test requirements will be abandoned without any new instructional guidelines in place and any state plan to monitor how districts and schools will evaluate student learning. I am suspicious that the underlining goal for eliminating test requirements is to raise graduation rates by making it easier to complete high school. Districts and school administrators will feel pressured to make new alternative assessments as flexible as possible so that everyone passes. Colleges and employers will not be happy when they are flooded with underprepared applicants. Many students may effectively be cheated out of their education. As I high school social studies teacher I found the two social studies exams were very useful. They provided expectations for student learning that helped me develop lessons and curriculum with appropriate themes, content, and skills. Without the exams, or with exams but no requirement that students pass them to graduate, what gets taught in social studies, history, and civics will vary from school to school and from class to class. The state provides a “Framework” to guide instruction, but only the tests at the end of 10th grade in Global history and 11th grade on United States history make the frameworks meaningful. Eliminating the tests in social studies means fragmenting instruction. It is a disaster in a society that is already atomized and where there is sharp disagreement about the meaning of the past and the issues that face the country today. Social studies is not the only subject that will be impacted. Administering math, science, and English exams will still be mandated by federal law, but there will be no requirement that students actually pass the exams. In sequential subjects like math, students who fail the test at the end of the initial course can be passed on to more difficult classes without any evidence that they mastered the prior work. Schools are currently evaluated on their state report cards according to the number of students who take advanced placement classes, although there is no requirement that they pass A.P. exams. Look for more unqualified students to be loaded into those classes, once the requirement that they previously passed a Regents exam in the subject is eliminated. The claim that New York State will have one universal high school diploma also rings hollow. The Department of Education is already discussing attaching seals or endorsement stickers to diplomas symbolizing areas of achievement. The new proposals will effectively put into place the lyrics from Sam Cooke’s 1960s song “Wonderful World.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/12/2246276/-New-York-on-the-Verge-of-Educational-Malpractice?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/