New York scraps long-standing Regents graduation exams, official claims the demand was like asking fish ‘to climb a tree’

On Monday, the New York State Board of Regents voted to phase out the exams as a graduation requirement for students across the state in an effort to eliminate the barrier of having educational standards for some students to graduate.

A press release from the New York State Education Department said that the action is a "significant step forward in New York’s multi-year transformation of graduation measures, developed following extensive statewide stakeholder engagement and the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures."

Under the new plan, the state will move to a "one State high school diploma," and students will no longer be expected to pass the Regents in order to graduate. Despite eliminating them as tests to graduate, the exams "will continue as rigorous statewide measures of student achievement." The phasing out of the graduation requirement will start with students graduating in 2028.

State education officials claimed that despite the elimination of the graduation requirement, there will be other options for students to demonstrate their abilities and that standards will be maintained. Instead of having the statewide test, "districts and schools will develop local assessment strategies that draw on multiple sources of evidence, including classroom assessments, student work, performance-based learning experiences, educator observations, and State assessments" for graduation requirements.

New York Regents member Felicia Thomas-Williams claimed that eliminating the Regents exam is just a step so that students can "showcase their strengths" and that the move does not "dumb-down" education at all. She said it was "quite the opposite, it's giving the– maybe you've seen the cartoon where you have a fish climb a tree? Well you don't assess a fish on climbing a tree because fish can't climb trees."

According to the New York Times, Betty Rosa, New York's state education commissioner, pointed to private schools and said that they "don’t worry about the Regents exams." The issue of standards, however, may arise if private schools happen to have higher expectations than many public schools in the state.

Rep. Mike Lawler reacted to the elimination of the Regents and said, "This is a complete indictment of New York’s failing education system under Kathy Hochul. Reading and math scores are abysmal and Kathy Hochul’s response is to eliminate regents requirement. Good grief. Kathy Hochul: continually exceeding low expectations."

Brent Scher, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wire, said in response, "This is an embarrassment. The Regents is basically a remedial knowledge exam. At competitive high schools in NYC, having a Regents was always the best, because it meant you didn't have to study for a real final. If you can't pass a Regents, you're not ready to move on."

Maud Maron wrote in response, "The racists won. The Equity crowd accused every one of racism while accepting as a given that black students would be unable to compete in a meritocracy—actual racism. They then enacted the 'burn it all down' plan. And ALL NYC Public School students are worse off as a result."

New York spends around $37,000 per student on average in the state as of the 2026-2027 school year, according to the Empire Center. In Fiscal year 2023, the national average in the US per pupil was $16,526. Despite the heavy price tag for students in New York schools, grades have been on the decline. The most recent test data shows that reading scores for grades 3 through 8 have dropped six percentage points.