New York students will no longer have to pass Regents exams to receive a high school diploma beginning with the class of 2028, after the state Board of Regents voted Monday to approve a sweeping overhaul of graduation requirements that will shift much of the responsibility for assessing students to individual school districts.
Under the new framework, New York will also move away from its current three-diploma structure and establish a single high school diploma. Districts will be permitted to use locally developed assessments and other measures to determine whether students have demonstrated the knowledge and skills necessary to graduate, while advanced academic distinctions will remain available on an optional basis.
The Board of Regents formally approved the change Monday morning, marking a major departure from the system that has for decades required students to pass a series of state Regents examinations before earning a diploma.
The changes are part of the state Education Department’s broader Portrait of a Graduate initiative. Education Commissioner Betty Rosa has argued that the current system does not treat students equally, noting that students attending many private schools — including those serving affluent families — can graduate without passing Regents exams. Rosa and Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young Jr. have said the new approach is intended to prevent a student’s background or ZIP code from determining his or her opportunity to graduate.
With the board’s approval of the NY Inspires timeline, the state Education Department is expected to present formal regulatory amendments by February 2027. Those regulations will lay out the details of the new graduation system and the transition to a single diploma.
Instead of making passage of standardized Regents exams a prerequisite for graduation, individual districts will develop assessment and grading systems using multiple measures of student performance. Those could include teachers’ daily evaluations, classroom quizzes, state examinations and other demonstrations of academic proficiency.
The state’s goal is to place greater emphasis on students demonstrating critical-thinking and problem-solving abilities rather than relying predominantly on their performance on multiple-choice and other standardized test questions.
The Board of Regents is scheduled to vote in June 2027 on final adoption of the regulatory changes. If approved as planned, the new single-diploma requirements would take effect July 1, 2027. During the 2027-28 school year, districts would also be required to develop their initial implementation plans and make them available to the public.
Regents exams themselves, however, will not disappear entirely.
New York will continue administering high school assessments required under federal law, including the Every Student Succeeds Act. Students will still be tested in English, mathematics and science, while New York also requires social studies testing for state accountability purposes.
The state Education Department is expected to develop assessments in those subjects that can be used to monitor student achievement and evaluate the performance of schools throughout New York.
The key distinction under the new system is that the remaining state and federally required examinations will primarily serve as tools for evaluating schools rather than as individual barriers to graduation. State officials say the results will allow education authorities to identify districts that are struggling academically or may require additional resources.
Deputy Education Commissioner Angelique Johnson-Dingle has emphasized that the Regents examinations are therefore not simply being eliminated. Their role in the state’s education system is instead being substantially changed.
Moving away from standardized exams as a graduation requirement will also require significant changes in the classroom. State officials are studying pilot programs that assess students through career and technical education, student-directed research projects, practical assignments designed by teachers and other alternatives to conventional testing.
Districts will be expected to create oversight mechanisms to ensure that locally developed assessments accurately measure student achievement and remain consistent with statewide academic expectations.
The Education Department has also drawn a distinction between using Regents exams to measure whether students have mastered material in a particular subject and using the exams to decide whether a student deserves a high school diploma.
According to NYSED, “considerable evidence” supports the usefulness of Regents exams in measuring student achievement within particular subjects, but the department says comparable evidence does not support making passage of those exams a condition for receiving a diploma.
The department has also long advised schools against using Regents results to determine students’ course grades, a policy NYSED said “has been the Department’s position for over two decades.”
Regent Adrian Hale, discussing the changes at the state Education Department meeting, also spoke about his own experiences with the shortcomings of “teaching to the test” in public schools.
The latest changes represent the next stage of the New York Inspires initiative, which is intended to shift the state’s graduation system toward practical skills and different ways for students to demonstrate what they have learned. New York education officials have spent several years examining alternative graduation measures and considering an eventual end to Regents exams as a diploma requirement.
One unresolved issue is how districts with fewer financial resources will provide some of the advanced educational opportunities envisioned under the new framework. Young raised questions about how the state would finance programs such as International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement courses so that students in less affluent districts have comparable opportunities.
Supporters of eliminating the Regents graduation requirement have argued that the current system contributes to students dropping out of high school, with particularly significant effects on low-income students and students of color.
Maria Odom, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, praised the state for moving away from “the outdated idea that all young people must pass a set of high-stakes standardized tests in order to demonstrate their readiness for post-secondary life.”
Odom said some students complete their coursework despite overcoming significant obstacles but are nevertheless denied diplomas because they cannot clear the Regents requirement, “sometimes sitting for a single exam a half-dozen times to try to raise their score by just a few points.”
