Opinion: New York Must Not Abandon Regents Exams Without a Better Measure of Readiness

The Board of Regents took another dangerous step this week: one that could leave New York’s 1 million high school and middle school students less prepared for college and the workforce. 

The discussion on NY Inspires, the state’s ambitious plan to overhaul secondary education, centered on the decision to decouple the state’s Regents exams as a graduation requirement, beginning in the 2027-28 school year. Students will still take the exams, administered since 1865, to meet federal accountability rules. But graduation will no longer be tied to scores.

While EdTrust-New York supports additional flexibility for graduation requirements, we are deeply concerned the state is moving forward with this change without putting an alternative system in place to measure whether students are ready for success after high school. 

Now is not the time for New York to weaken the state’s only objective measure of high school readiness. Doing so could mask the deep challenges facing our schools and students while making it even harder for parents, employers and colleges to determine whether students have the skills they need to succeed after graduation. 

State, national and international data show that New York students continue to struggle with reading and math. In 2025, the state’s graduation rate reached 85%, yet only 56% of students passed the Algebra 1 Regents Exam. And on the 2024 NAEP, only 31% of 8th graders entering high school were proficient in reading. Just this week, the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) reported that U.S. 15-year-olds scored near their lowest levels in reading and math since 2000. 

These numbers reveal a clear disconnect between the assessment data showing a math and literacy crisis, and what the New York State Education Department (NYSED) considers college and career readiness.  

Standardized assessments such as Regents exams are far from perfect. But they are not responsible for New York’s poor reading and math outcomes. Simply changing graduation requirements will not solve the underlying problem: New York is failing to prepare its students — particularly Black and Latinx students, students from low-income households, students with disabilities and multilingual learners — with the foundational skills they need for post-secondary success.  

Even more alarming than the policy itself is the poor roll out of NY Inspires. As the new school year gets underway, schools still face significant confusion and a lack of guidance about how they will measure proficiency in core high school subjects instead of Regents exams for current high school students in less than a year. 

If the state Education Department truly wants to create a new graduation standard and position New York as a national leader preparing students to become 21st Century learners, it should not eliminate Regents exams as a graduation requirement without first establishing a credible alternative. State leaders should provide schools with clear expectations, reliable measures and the resources they need before they weaken an existing statewide standard.  

When state leaders roll out poorly thought-out policies, the students most likely to suffer are those whom our school system already serves least well. New York should also learn from the experiences of states such as Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, which attempted similar competency-based graduation reforms before scaling them back or abandoning them amid concerns about equity, inconsistent definitions of proficiency and an inadequate educator capacity and training. 

The state should pause the implementation of NY Inspires, including the elimination of Regents exams as a graduation requirement. Before moving forward, the department should make a concerted effort to provide schools with the guidance, rubrics, and statewide calibrations they need to implement NY Inspires effectively, equitably and transparently. 

New York can and should rethink how it measures student readiness. But it should not remove the measuring stick before it has built a better one.