Regent Catherine Collins of Buffalo is pictured during the most recent Board of Regents meeting holding up a research report on graduation requirements.

New state graduation standards are still far into the future.

The state Board of Regents recently received the first phase of work on the new graduation standards: a report focused on graduation requirements across the United States and overseas and a report that contains the results of the public input sessions. That work will be turned over to a 64-member Blue Ribbon Commission that will review both the most recent report and other studies to make recommendations back to the Board of Regents. The commission was originally to have finished its work last summer, but the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed that original schedule.

Regent Catherine Collins, who represents the Eighth Judicial District that includes Chautauqua County, wants to see the traditional Regents remain a part of the mix. Collins has been a staunch advocate for retaining the Regents exams and hasn’t changed her stance as the process enters its third year.

“The Regents is my concern. When I saw modified, which was good to see modified, but then it said remove the Regents exams,” Collins said of comments in the report regarding modifying or ending the Regents exams “I was fortunate enough to have the Regents science diploma which gave me the foundation to go into health care. We have to be very, very careful with this document, the ripple effect it would have on not only health care but other areas that are needed like engineering.”

The lengthy research document — available at www.nysed.gov/grad-measures — focused on several states and other countries deemed to produce positive student outcomes and which use several methods to discern if a student is ready to graduate. The report’s authors said high school exit exams like the Regents exams didn’t always lead to student success and can lead to higher high school dropout rates.

Betty Rosa, state education commissioner and former Board of Regents chairwoman, responded to Collins’ comments by saying the Regents and others involved in writing the new standards shouldn’t cling to the past because it worked for them but instead should focus on a system that works for all students.

“At the end of the day our job is to keep in mind what our students need for the future, hearing the voices of the various constituents but most importantly hearing the voices of our students,” Rosa said. “Our students talked about financial literacy. Our students talked about what the Regents mean for them. Our students have talked about so many different topics. Keep in mind that this is about customer service. Our customers are the students. So let’s move forward with our commission to ensure that they have the opportunities, they have not only the opportunity but the access to those opportunities with excellence.”

Other Regents members questioned whether or not the state should change methods of instruction and course modules in addition to graduation requirements. Regent Roger Tilles said the 166-page report seems too focused on the current pre-school through 12th grade system while wondering if that is so because those currently employed in education want the system to remain in place. A slide presentation given to the Regents noted educators were the majority of participants in public hearings to gather input for the new standards, with 71% of 2020 surveys coming from educators, followed by 54% and 56% of responses to a pair of 2022 surveys coming from educators.

“In terms of the stakeholders making all of these recommendations sand looking through the forums that we’ve had, I think we are tethered to a system that might not be the best system that we have to create adults, not adult citizens,” Tilles said. “Citizenship is important. I’m not sure we do that. I don’t know if this is going to take years of work, obviously, but I think what you’ve done is exemplary and wonderful. But I’m wondering if we’re not tethered to the wrong pole.”