Regents keep most exams for 2010-11

Back in March I reported that the Regents were costing their tests, to see what savings they could get by eliminating some of them. The next week I clarified that they were not actually proposing to eliminate all the exams. And now they have announced a few cuts – a bit more than I expected, but not by much. The one’s that might hurt the most schools/teachers/students are the Component Retests (can help a kid graduate) and the Foreign Language Regents (what if you’ve just finished the 2nd year of a sequence that no longer leads to an exam, an exam that is required for the Advanced Regents diploma?)

The Regents made the following changes:

• Scoring materials – all will be downloaded – the State won’t print them up and send them out anymore
• Component retests – in Algebra and English – eliminated
• Social Studies Exams – Grades 5 and 8 – eliminated
• Foreign Language – 8th grade proficiency exams – eliminated
• Foreign Language Regents – Spanish, French, Italian – kept
• Foreign Language Regents – all others – eliminated
• Chemistry Regents – August administration – eliminated
• Algebra II/Trig – August administration – eliminated

From the NYSUT website:

The State Education Department request for additional funding from the Legislature and executive has been partially approved. This will allow for the following:

• Administration of January 2011 Regents Exams
• Translations of exams into Chinese, Haitian-Creole, Korean, Russian, and Spanish
• Administration of the June 2011 Foreign Language Regents Exam in Italian

Please keep in mind that this applies only to the 2011 administration of Regents Exams. Unless alternative funding sources can be identified in the very near future, the Regents may have to further reduce the NYS assessment program in the fall 2010.

The deficit-reduction actions taken by the Regents in June 2010 will be continued. This includes:

• Discontinuation of paper-based scoring materials for Regents Exams. All materials will be on-line for downloading and printing by districts.
• Elimination of Component Retesting for Math and ELA
• Elimination of the Grades 5 and 8 Social Studies Exams
• Elimination of the Grade 8 Second Language Proficiency Exams
• Elimination of the August administration of Algebra 2/Trigonometry and Chemistry Regents Exams
• Elimination of Foreign Language Regents Exams except for Spanish, French, and Italian.

You may access the SED memo online (PDF).