Former New York Gov. George Pataki is blasting the state’s decision to end the requirement that students pass Regents exams to receive a high school diploma, accusing education officials of lowering academic standards rather than confronting failing schools.
The New York Board of Regents voted earlier this month to move forward with a sweeping overhaul of the state’s graduation system. Beginning with students graduating in 2028, passing a prescribed set of Regents exams will no longer be required for a diploma. The exams themselves are not being abolished and will continue to be administered, including where required under federal law, but they will no longer serve as a separate graduation hurdle.
Pataki, the three-term Republican governor who served from 1995 through 2006 and whose administration helped make Regents exams a statewide graduation requirement, condemned the change in unusually sharp terms.
“Getting rid of the Regents is incredibly stupid,” said George Pataki, the Republican three-term New York governor from 1995 through 2006, to The Post.
“It seems like the Education Department’s main function right now is to disguise the fact that too many New York State schools are failing to educate our kids,” Pataki said.
“So instead of doing the appropriate testing so that corrective measures could be taken to improve [performance], they simply get rid of the tests to hide their failure.”
“This is really a sad day for New York.”
The change is part of the State Education Department’s “NY Inspires” initiative, a multiyear restructuring of New York’s high school graduation system. State officials say the goal is to measure student achievement through a broader range of academic work and demonstrated skills instead of making passage of a specific series of standardized exams a prerequisite for receiving a diploma.
The state’s plan calls for moving away from the existing system of local, Regents and Regents with Advanced Designation diplomas and eventually replacing them with a single New York State high school diploma. Students will still be able to distinguish themselves through seals and endorsements, including a replacement for the current Advanced Designation.
Under the current system, students generally must earn the required credits and satisfy assessment requirements that include English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies, along with an additional pathway requirement.
Those assessment requirements became a central part of New York’s graduation system during Pataki’s administration, when Richard Mills served as state education commissioner. Current 12th graders are expected to be the final graduating class required to satisfy the existing Regents testing requirements.
Students graduating beginning in 2028 will no longer have to pass Regents exams to earn their diplomas, although the tests will remain available and will continue to play a role in measuring academic performance.
The Education Department says districts will instead use broader local assessment strategies incorporating multiple forms of evidence, potentially including classroom assessments, student work, performance-based learning, teacher observations and state examinations.
The overhaul does not mean that students will simply receive diplomas without academic requirements. The state says existing credit requirements will initially remain, while later phases of the initiative will introduce additional requirements and eventually move toward a competency-based graduation system.
Full implementation of the new competency-based model is scheduled to begin with students entering ninth grade in the fall of 2029. Under that framework, students will be expected to demonstrate proficiency in state learning standards as well as a broader set of competencies.
Pataki, however, argues that eliminating the requirement to pass Regents exams removes an important statewide benchmark and makes it more difficult to identify schools that are failing to properly educate their students.
He also invoked the recent controversy surrounding New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Brooklyn public school her daughter attended, arguing that struggling schools demonstrate why New York should be strengthening rather than weakening objective measures of student achievement.
“This is a disgrace,” Pataki said.
“The next time Democrats talk about income inequality, ask them how their subservience to the teachers union is helping low income minority kids get a step up in life,” he said.
The issue is also spilling into the 2026 gubernatorial campaign, where education policy has become another dividing line between Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
“We pay the highest taxes in the nation under Kathy Hochul, yet too many of our children are still not getting the results they deserve,” Blakeman said in a statement. “Taxpayers and students deserve higher standards, stronger schools and real accountability for the enormous amount of money New York spends on education.
The Board of Regents, rather than the governor, has direct authority over state education policy and graduation requirements. Its 17 members are elected by the state Legislature, where Democrats hold majorities. Hochul therefore does not appoint the Regents or directly control their decisions, although the governor wields substantial influence over education policy through the state budget and legislation.
Hochul has nevertheless expressed reservations about the decision and particularly about the uncertainty surrounding what will replace the current graduation standards.
“Governor Hochul shares the concerns many New Yorkers have raised about the decision to eliminate the current standards for earning a high school diploma and the lack of clarity about what will replace them,” a Hochul rep said Sunday.
“While this decision rests with the independent State Education Department, she believes strongly that a New York diploma must remain a meaningful credential that students, families, colleges and employers can trust. The Board of Regents have a responsibility to preserve academic rigor and ensure clear, consistent graduation standards across the state.”
State education officials fired back forcefully at Pataki, accusing him of attacking an education system in which he has not been closely involved for decades.
“We understand former Governor George Pataki has not been engaged in the education landscape since 1998 when he signed the law creating charter schools,” the state DOE said. “While he’s entitled to his political opinion, it is not reflective of the current climate and support educators statewide are providing the Department through ongoing stakeholder engagement.”
“We are committed to ensuring every New York student, not simply students fortunate enough to attend a particular school, has access to rigorous teaching and meaningful ways to demonstrate what they know and can do.”
The Education Department says its new approach could incorporate portfolios, long-term projects, problem-solving exercises and other methods of demonstrating academic competency rather than relying predominantly on standardized testing.
The state also says students under the new system will be expected to develop information-literacy skills and learn to “recognize misinformation, distinguish fact from opinion, evaluate sources, and identify claims that are presented without important context.”
“We are far more interested in equity, academic rigor, and preparing New York’s students for the future than in preserving the education politics of the 1990s,” the SED said.
Education officials also took a personal swipe at Pataki, pointing out that the statewide Regents graduation mandate he is defending did not exist when he attended high school.
“It’s also worth noting that when Pataki graduated from high school, New York students could graduate without satisfying a Regents exam requirement, and yet somehow, that era still produced a public high school graduate from Peekskill who went to Yale and later became Governor of New York,” the SED said.
The State Education Department is now responsible for developing the detailed regulations, guidance and assessment structure that will accompany the transition. State officials say Regents exams will remain part of New York education, but their purpose will shift toward measuring mastery of state learning standards rather than determining whether an individual student receives a diploma.
Critics say that still leaves a major question unanswered: What statewide accountability mechanism will replace the requirement being removed?
Stan Litow, a member of the SUNY Board of Trustees, former New York City deputy schools chancellor and one of the architects of the P-TECH school model, said changing the system before a fully developed replacement is ready is problematic.
“You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” said Stan Litow, a member of the SUNY Board of Trustees, former New York City deputy schools chancellor and architect in designing Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools or P-TECH schools.
“Removing an accountability system without a replacement in place is a flawed way of proceeding,” he said.
The Regents exams themselves have long attracted criticism from both sides of the education debate. Even supporters of statewide testing have argued that the exams have sometimes been weakened over the years, while past controversies have included allegations of manipulated scoring and pressure to maintain graduation rates.
The debate, therefore, is increasingly centered not simply on whether the Regents exams are an ideal measurement tool, but on what should replace their role as a uniform statewide graduation benchmark — and whether New York can move toward a more flexible system without reducing the meaning of a high school diploma.
{Matzav.com}
