Panel on high school graduation standards could recommend significant changes
A 64-member advisory group will review the state’s complex diploma requirements to graduate from New York high schools, such as Roosevelt High School. Credit: Anthony Lanzilote
State education leaders on Tuesday named a 64-member panel, including school superintendents, teachers, parents and others, to advise on what is shaping up as potentially the biggest transformation of high school graduation standards in a quarter century.
Described as a “blue ribbon” commission, the advisory group is scheduled to start meeting monthly this fall to review the state’s complex diploma requirements. The panel is supposed to turn in a final report with recommendations by summer 2024.
At least eight Long Islanders have been appointed. They include Richard Altabe, principal and executive vice president of the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach; Samantha Bruno, a recent student at Eastern Suffolk BOCES; Jordan Gonzalez, lead resource specialist with the Long Island Regional Bilingual Education Resource Network; and Lorna Lewis, superintendent of Malverne schools.
Other Long Islanders are: Susan Lipman, board trustee with Eastern Suffolk BOCES; Christopher Rosa, president and CEO of the Viscardi Center and Henry Viscardi School; Jachan Watkis, K-12 director of mathematics, science and technology in the Rocky Point school district; and Kelly Whitney-Rivera, director of counseling at Valley Stream Central High School.
Lewis, a former president of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, said she was honored by the appointment to what she described as a "life-changing initiative."
"They say when you teach, you touch the future," Lewis added. "This work puts real meaning to ensuring successful trajectories for all of our learners. It just may be the most important work I will ever be involved in."
State Education Department staffers said the advisory commission reflects New York’s racial and ethnic diversity, in that its membership is 53% white, 19% Hispanic, 16% Black, 6% multiracial, 3% Asian and 3% Native American. The group includes 13 experts on helping students with disabilities, 11 school superintendents, 10 principals, eight classroom teachers, four business representatives and three parents, among others.
State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa and other officials said their new advisers will help identify the skills and knowledge needed by high school graduates to succeed in the 21st century. Another focus will be to find “equivalent” pathways to diplomas for students now struggling to pass state Regents exams.
Rosa, who announced the appointments Tuesday, called formation of the commission "a significant milestone in our efforts to review the state's current graduation measures."
Currently, those measures include a requirement that virtually all students pass at least four or five state Regents exams with scores of 65 or higher. This approach was adopted by the state in 1996 with considerable fanfare, on grounds that it would prevent large numbers of teenagers from being "tracked" into lower quality, non-Regents courses.
In recent years, Rosa and her colleagues have talked of the need to "rethink" the state's use of Regents exams. No decisions have yet been reached on how this might be done. But any major pullback in the use of Regents exams would mark a dramatic change in academic approach.
Some supporters of traditional standards fear this pullback might already be underway. In May, the Regents board agreed to allow local school superintendents to award graduation credit to students for exam scores as low as 50. On Tuesday, the board amended and extended the policy for students graduating in 2022-23.
State education officials described the latest move as temporary, and intended to provide relief to students whose classwork might have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics, on the other hand, denounced the action as a troubling signal of what may lie ahead.
Dia Bryant, executive director of The Education Trust-New York, said her group was "deeply concerned" by extension of the 50-point rule, and felt that officials should focus more effort on using federal COVID-19 relief funds to help students at risk of not graduating.
"This sends the wrong message to students and families beginning one of the most important school years in recent history," Bryant said in a prepared statement. "The amendment continues a troubling trend by the Board of Regents to dilute graduation standards and raises serious concerns about whether our education system is preparing students for their postsecondary futures."
Bryant, who was among those named to the state commission Tuesday, said she was honored and looking forward to helping come up with graduation standards ensuring that all students would leave high school "prepared for the brightest possible future."
The Manhattan-based trust is a research and advocacy group, and a leader of a statewide coalition pushing for rigorous standards.
John Hildebrand is Newsday's senior education writer and has covered school news and policy issues affecting Long Island for more than 40 years.
