Last Monday, the New York Times reported that an advisory group for New York’s Education Department, under pressure to fix slumping graduation rates at its public schools, would propose not improving the education of the students but making the Regents Examinations, which the state has required since 1876 for a high-school diploma, optional. Other options such as “capstone projects,” presentations, or “performance-based assessments” would also enable graduation.
What offends the most about the proposal to make the Regents Exam optional is that it is understood by all that the children of the ambitious, upwardly mobile, or rich will continue to take standardized tests to distinguish themselves from their competitors for admission to top undergraduate schools. Rather, this is merely a shabby way for New York’s Education Department to help “clear the books” of students whose educational experiences have not prepared them for life. Unstated, but no secret, is the disparate impact this will have on black and Hispanic students who are disproportionately likely to be given a diploma as a substitute for an education. Instead of teaching them properly, New York cynically proposes to choose the path of least resistance: lowering standards to the point of near-indeterminacy, so that undertaught students can be handed a certificate and passed along to the workforce or the undergraduate system as someone else’s problem to fix
This isn’t about going or not going to college. Without standardized testing, you can hide the fact that, like already happens in Baltimore, the entirety of the students in inner-city schools lack proficiency in reading and math. You can simply not educate these kids at all.
Folks, remember: anti-racism is austerity. You’ll pay more taxes, get fewer services, and pay out of pocket for what the taxes used to cover. Those who don’t have money to cover additional out of pocket costs will be exceptionally screwed.
Many good people were duped into supporting anti-racism and the BLM. They sincerely thought they were doing good. But look where it led. It’s time to stop before we destroy an entire generation of low-income kids for short-lived joys of acute self-righteousness.
This isn’t new. It’s just being made more obvious.
What they’ve already done is reduce the number of Regents needed to graduate, and changed the tests so that a lower end passing grade is easier to achieve while a top grade is quite difficult to achieve.
“What offends the most about the proposal to make the Regents Exam optional is that it is understood by all that the children of the ambitious, upwardly mobile, or rich will continue to take standardized tests to distinguish themselves from their competitors for admission to top undergraduate schools. ”
This is the key piece here. These measures only hurt the poorer students who will struggle to be admitted into competitive academic programs. They will either be left behind or take up a useless major at some private university and graduate with huge debt and no prospects of a real career to pay it back.
In many ways these wokesters are furthering the divide between the poor and the rich.
Clarissa's Blog 
This isn’t new. It’s just being made more obvious.
What they’ve already done is reduce the number of Regents needed to graduate, and changed the tests so that a lower end passing grade is easier to achieve while a top grade is quite difficult to achieve.
Amanda
LikeLike
“What offends the most about the proposal to make the Regents Exam optional is that it is understood by all that the children of the ambitious, upwardly mobile, or rich will continue to take standardized tests to distinguish themselves from their competitors for admission to top undergraduate schools. ”
This is the key piece here. These measures only hurt the poorer students who will struggle to be admitted into competitive academic programs. They will either be left behind or take up a useless major at some private university and graduate with huge debt and no prospects of a real career to pay it back.
In many ways these wokesters are furthering the divide between the poor and the rich.
LikeLike
“These measures only hurt the poorer students”
That’s the entire purpose.
LikeLiked by 1 person