HS grad rates don’t pass the test: study

High-school graduation rates across New York state may have been “inflated” during the pandemic, a new report has found.

Roughly three out of every four grads used at least one state test exemption to earn a diploma in 2021, according to the analysis released Monday by the New York Equity Coalition.

Statewide graduation rates have been growing since 2016, with 86.1% of high-schoolers getting a diploma in 2021, 1.3% more than in 2016, according to data from the Education Trust-New York.

But, the coalition’s report notes, “recent changes to state graduation requirements make it difficult to know if graduation-rate improvements accurately reflect how well schools are preparing students . . . for future success.”

The state Education Department has made several tweaks to rules for Regents exams since COVID-19 hit, first canceling the standardized tests altogether in 2020. For the 2020-2021 school year, officials allowed kids to graduate without taking exams, and required only that they pass their Regents-based course by the end of summer.

While the report said the need for flexibility in the pandemic was “understandable,” it noted that the share of graduates who used a state test exemption to earn a diploma ballooned from 10% in 2020 to 70% in 2021.

Less than 18% of graduates earned diplomas without any exemptions, while 45% used two or more.

In New York City public schools, 66% of students used at least one exemption to graduate in 2020, and 60% used them in 2021.

The state Education Department scrapped the Regents in January during the Omicron-variant surge. Most recently, officials canceled the history Regents exam in May following the racist mass shooting in Buffalo and passed emergency measures allowing students who scored down to a 50% to apply for less-rigorous “local” diplomas.

Samuel Radford III, a Buffalo parent who leads the advocacy group We the Parents, criticized the moves as devaluing diplomas.

“I am becoming increasingly more concerned that a high-school diploma does not mean our children are college and career ready,” he said.

“What does having a diploma mean if our children can’t pass basic skills tests for employment or have to take non-credit-bearing remedial courses in college?”

New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks has called the exams “important” but has said they play an “outsized role” in public education at the expense of other measures of learning and preparedness.

The Education Department stood by the steps it took in response to the pandemic.

“It is worth pointing out that schools use multiple measures to assess student learning. Standardized tests are one of those measures,” the department said in a statement.

“As we return to regular administration of the Regents exams, we will be able to better measure how the temporary suspension of the exams affected graduation rates. To draw such a conclusion based on what we know now is premature.”

What does having a diploma mean if our children can’t pass basic skills tests for employment? — Samuel Radford III, Buffalo parent