Instead of being asked to score at least a on tests of English Language Arts, mathematics, social studies, science and one optional exam, New York students will be assessed using standards. 

It is yet unclear as to who will be evaluating whether they can be considered:

• academically prepared
• creative innovators
• critical thinkers
• effective communicators
• global citizens
• reflective and future-focused

It is also unclear what the criteria for succeeding in each category will be.

When I asked parent subscribers to my mailing list how they felt about the shift, the answers split starkly into two camps.

There were those who cheered. Josh Kross, father of two high schoolers and one graduate, wrote, “Regents are outdated. Good riddance.” Moria Herbst added, “Other states don’t have them. Certainly not in Massachusetts, where I grew up. And Massachusetts does just fine!”

“I am deeply in favor of moving away from a standardized testing model,” said E.J., the Washington Heights parent of a first grader. “While Portrait of a Graduate is still being worked on as to how it will actually function, I’m encouraged by the idea and the possibility of it being a more complete picture of the human we’re sending out into the world.”

Other parents, however, were less enthused.

“Portrait of a Graduate is so fuzzy as to be meaningless,” wrote Rachel Fremmer, dismissively. “I didn’t think standards could be lowered any further, but they have been.” 

“It seems like a process that will make things more subjective for teachers, and thus less fair for many students,” opined Marina. “This seems like a vague requirement that will allow parents with resources even more leverage.”

Yiatin Chu, mom of a ninth grader, went even further, saying, “For those who criticize the Regents as a low bar/waste of time, why aren’t we improving it and making it more rigorous instead? Portrait of a Graduate is aspirational — over 40% of eighth grade students are entering high school not reading at grade level. I see the change to these graduation metrics for HS graduation as a way for the system to push kids out the door.”

New York City already faces the issues of straight A students being unable to perform equally well — or even pass — state elementary and middle school tests, not to mention high school Regents exams.

“Without objective tests, there is no way to gauge what kids are actually learning,” Diane Rubenstein predicted. “This will allow the (Department of Education) to give kids nothing in the classroom. This will give (them) cover to not teach.”

“Removing this requirement dilutes education standards even further,” agreed AW. “It plays very well into the current administration’s program of ‘equity,’ aka ‘mediocrity for all.’ It disincentivizes kids from learning and teaches them that if something is hard, just protest and it will be removed from your path, even to your detriment.”

For many parents, the perceived lowering of standards will hurt city students when it comes to competing not just nationally, but internationally.

“If USA high schools become less competitive, that’s not good for the next generation,” Jenny worried, while Ella added, “Our kids will fall behind other countries. We are already falling behind in the world. My kids cannot compete with foreign students.”

Of the that currently have high-school exit exams in place, New Jersey ranked No. 2 in the country for educational achievement for 2025, Virginia was No. 13, Ohio was No. 15, Florida was No. 19, Texas No. 31 and Louisiana No. 35. (Massachusetts, which got rid of its exit exams in 2025, is, as noted above, ranked No. 1. However, that ranking was achieved while the state still had its exit exam up through last year.)

In New York, while students will no longer be required to sit for Regents exams in order to graduate, they will still have the option of taking them in order to earn a .

This could have the effect of widening the gaps between students, rather than improving equity. Colleges and employers will be able to see who earned a Regents diploma and who opted to bypass established standards via a more subjective metric, which could imply less academic rigor.

Like those rejected from colleges that went SAT/ACT scores because they realized those were a reliable predictor of applicants’ capabilities, students who choose not to take the Regents exams could find themselves negatively perceived and penalized.

“I understand the growing pressure to move away from standardized testing, but we still need a meaningful way to measure student progress and evaluate our schools,” ventured Stephanie Cuba, the mother of children in seventh and ninth grades. “Education policy should be deliberate and comprehensive, not a series of reactive decisions. If you’re going to dismantle the old system, you need a clear, credible plan to replace it. Without that, we’re operating without a compass.”

Right now, with Profile of a Graduate details vague and , New York risks graduating multiple cohorts whose achievements will not be properly valued. The repercussions might follow them for years.

Answer these questions without Googling them:

• What are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution called?
  
• What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?
  
• Who was the first president of the United States?
  
• What ocean is on the West Coast of the U.S.?
  
• Name one branch of government.

Not hard, are they? These are a representative few of the 100 questions on the U.S. Citizenship Test. Immigrants must answer six out of 10 correctly to become citizens. It’s not an esoteric academic exercise — it is a straightforward test of basic knowledge about the country’s government, history, geography and democratic principles.

By now, it has become a bromide (and, in some quarters, a ) that a substantial number of Americans graduate high school without being able to demonstrate the kind of rock-bottom grasp of civics and history that these questions imply, and which would-be citizens handle with ease. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds recently announced a bill that would require high school students to pass the citizenship test to graduate; if it passes, Iowa will become the 14th state to adopt such a measure. 

But if 17-year-olds are cramming basic facts as a last-minute requirement to graduate, we’ve already missed the boat. My recommendation for Iowa and other states that want to raise their students’ civics IQ is to start much earlier. The knowledge demands of the U.S. Citizenship Test should be well within the grasp of children attending an elementary school committed to a knowledge-rich curriculum — with handsome dividends for literacy in addition to civics and citizenship.

To demonstrate how basic the knowledge needed to pass really is, I uploaded the 100 questions on the U.S. citizenship exam and the — a pre-K-8 curriculum designed to build a strong foundation in history, civics, science, literature and the arts — to ChatGPT for a side-by-side comparison. Rooted in the idea that knowledge is essential for literacy, and literacy for engaged citizenship, the Sequence seeks to ensure that schools are prepared to arm students with the background information necessary to comprehend complex texts and participate meaningfully in democratic life.

Comparing the two documents shows that many of the topics needed to pass the test are recommended in the Sequence for first graders, with 75% included by fifth grade:

• I. Principles of American Democracy (questions 1-12 on the test): Core Knowledge introduces concepts such as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and democratic principles by Grade 2. By Grade 5, students have a firm grasp of self-government, checks and balances, and individual rights, aligning closely with questions on the test.
  
• II. System of Government (questions 13-47): By Grade 3, students learn about the three branches of government, the legislative process and the role of the president. More advanced topics like federal versus state power, Supreme Court justices and election processes appear in Grades 4-6.
  
• III. Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens (questions 48-57): Core Knowledge covers the First Amendment, voting rights and responsibilities of citizenship in Grade 3, reinforcing them throughout middle school. This aligns directly with questions regarding freedoms, voting and civic duties on the test.
  
• IV. American History: Colonial Period and Independence (questions 58-70): Students study early American history starting in Grade 1, with more depth added in Grades 4-5. The Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence and founding of the U.S. government are covered extensively, preparing students to answer citizenship test questions on these topics.
  
• V. The 1800s and the Civil War (questions 71-80): Core Knowledge introduces the Civil War and Reconstruction in Grade 5, covering key events like the abolition of slavery, the role of Abraham Lincoln and the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation.
  
• VI. Recent American History and Other Important Historical Information (questions 81-100): 20th Century history, including both World Wars, the Cold War and Civil Rights Movement, is introduced in Grades 6-8, aligning well with the later questions on the test.

By the end of elementary school, students in a Core Knowledge school will have encountered nearly all concepts necessary to succeed on the test. Though there are some missing pieces, such as certain government officials, Selective Service registration and various geographic details, elementary school students using the Sequence would likely be able to answer 75% to 85% of the test’s 100 questions correctly. Considering that the actual exam requires answering only six of 10 randomly selected questions correctly, a Core Knowledge student would almost certainly pass with ease.

Academics and scholars who study and advocate for civic education tend to reject making the citizenship test a graduation requirement, viewing it as a meaningless exercise in rote memorization or a distraction from meatier curricular fare. But if a student reaches the end of 12th grade without a command of these basic facts, something has gone awry. The knowledge accumulated over years of systematic instruction should serve as an effective preparation, making the test less an obstacle and more an affirmation of what has already been learned.

This is not the case at present. Naturalized citizens native-born Americans on the test. The disparity underscores a deep failure in civics education in U.S. schools, where fundamental knowledge about democracy, governance and history is clearly neglected.

A few years ago, recognizing this gap, Arizona’s pushed more than a dozen states to make passing the U.S. Citizenship Test a high school graduation requirement. In some states, students are supposed to achieve a minimum score; in others, simply taking the test is enough. Either way, making high school students scramble to learn what they should have been taught in elementary school is a remediation effort, not an indicator of educational success.

If states see value in students taking and passing the U.S. Citizenship Test, it should be administered in fifth grade, or eighth at the very latest — when there’s still time to send a powerful signal that every student-citizen should know, share and value the basic principles of our system of government and every school show a minimal commitment to civic education. Moving the test to elementary school would also demonstrate a renewed commitment to what should have been there all along — a coherent, content-rich K-5 curriculum.

Let’s give kids the knowledge they need when they need it — early, often and unapologetically. The dividends will be measured not just in civics scores, but in literacy, citizenship and the long-term health of the republic.

For a closer look at how the U.S. Citizenship Test’s 100 questions and the Core Knowledge Sequence sync up at various grade levels, click .

Jill Norton, an education policy adviser in Massachusetts, has a teenage son with dyslexia and ADHD. Shelley Scruggs, an electrical engineer in the same state, also has a teenage son with ADHD. Both students go to the same technical high school.

But last fall, Norton and Scruggs advocated on opposite sides of a Massachusetts ballot referendum scrapping the requirement that high school kids pass a standardized state test to graduate.

Norton argued that without the high bar of the standard exam, kids like hers won’t have an incentive to strive. But Scruggs maintained that kids with learning disorders also need different types of measurements than standardized tests to qualify for a high school diploma.

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Voters approved the referendum last November, 59% to 41%, ending the Massachusetts requirement. There and in most other states, Scruggs’ position against testing is carrying the day.

Just seven states now require students to pass a test to graduate, and one of those — New York — will end its Regents Exam as a requirement by the 2027-28 school year. Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Virginia still require testing to graduate, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a group that opposes such mandates.

In Massachusetts, teachers unions favored getting rid of the exam as a graduation requirement. They argued it forced them to teach certain facts at the expense of in-depth or more practical learning. But many business leaders were in favor of keeping the test, arguing that without it, they will have no guarantee that job applicants with high school diplomas possess basic skills.

State by state, graduation tests have tumbled over the past decade. In 2012, half the states required the tests, but that number fell to 13 states in 2019, . The trend accelerated during the pandemic, when many school districts scrapped the tests during remote learning and some decided to permanently extend test exemptions.

Studies have found that such graduation exams disadvantage students with learning disabilities as well as English language learners, and that they aren’t always a good predictor of success in careers or higher education.

An oft-cited 2010 by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin may have ignited the trend to scrap the tests. Researchers’ review of 46 earlier studies found that high school exit exams “produced few of the expected benefits and have been associated with costs for the most disadvantaged students.”

Some states began to find other ways to assess high school competency, such as grades in mandatory courses, capstone projects or technical milestones.

“Minimum competency tests in the 1980s drove the idea that we need to make sure that students who graduate from high school have the bare minimum of skills,” said John Papay, an associate professor of education at Brown University. “By the mid-2000s, there was a reaction against standardized testing and a movement away from these exams. They disappeared during the pandemic and that led to these tests going away.”

Despite the problems with the tests for English learners and students with learning disabilities, Papay said, the tests are “strong predictors of long-term outcomes. Students who do better on the tests go on to graduate [from] college and they earn more.”

Papay, who remains neutral on whether the tests should be required, pointed out that high school students usually have many opportunities to retake the tests and to appeal their scores.

Anne Hyslop, director of policy development at All4Ed, a think tank and advocacy group for underserved communities, noted that in many states, the testing requirements were replaced by other measures.

The schools “still require some students or all students to demonstrate competency to graduate, but students have many more options on how they could do that. They can pass a dual credit [high school/college] course, pass industry recognized competency tests. …

“A lot of states still have assessments as part of their graduation requirements, but in a much broader form,” she said.

Massachusetts moves

Scruggs said her son took Massachusetts’ required exam last spring; he passed the science and math portions but fell 1 point short in English.

“He could do well in his classes, but if he didn’t pass the three tests, he wouldn’t get his regular diploma,” Scruggs said. “How do you go out into the working world, and you went to school every day and passed your classes, but got no diploma?”

Her son has taken the English test again and is awaiting his new score, she said.

Norton, by contrast, said the exam, called the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, gave her son an incentive to work hard.

“I worry that kids like him … are going to end up graduating from high school without the skills they will need,” Norton said. “Without the test, they will just be passed along. I can’t just trust that my kid is getting the basic level of what he needs. I need a bar set where he will get the level of education he needs.”

Students in Massachusetts still will have to take the MCAS in their sophomore year of high school, and the scores will be used to assess their overall learning. But failing the test won’t be a barrier to graduation beginning with the class of 2025. The state is still debating how — or whether — to replace the MCAS with other types of required courses, evaluations or measurements.

High school students in Massachusetts and most states still have to satisfy other graduation requirements, which usually include four years of English and a number of other core subjects such as mathematics, sciences and social studies. Those requirements vary widely across the country, however, as most are set by individual school districts.

In New York, the State Education Department in 2019 began a multiyear process of rethinking high school graduation requirements and the Regents Exam. The department decided last fall to phase out the exit exam and replace it with something called a “Portrait of a Graduate,” including seven areas of study in which a student must establish proficiency. Credit options include capstone projects, work-based learning experiences and internships, as well as academic achievement. Several other states have moved recently to a similar approach.

Harry Feder, executive director of FairTest, an advocacy group that works to limit standardized testing, said course grades do a better job of assessing students’ abilities.

“Standardized tests are poor ways of incentivizing and measuring the kinds of skills and knowledge we should have high school kids focusing on,” Feder said. “You get ‘teaching to the test’ that doesn’t bear much of a relationship to the kinds of things that kids are being asked to do when they go on to college or the workplace.”

Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association union, said phrases such as “teaching to the test” disrespect teachers and their ability to know when students have mastered content and competency. The high school tests are first taken in the 10th grade in Massachusetts. If the kids don’t pass, they can retake the exam in the 11th or 12th grade.

“Educators are still evaluating students,” he said. “It’s a mirage to say that everything that a student does in education can be measured by a standardized test in the 10th grade. Education, of course, goes through the 12th grade.”

He added that course grades are still a good predictor of how much a student knows.

Colorado’s menu

Several of the experts and groups on both sides of the debate point to Colorado as a blueprint for how to move away from graduation test requirements.

Colorado, which made the switch with the graduating class of 2021, now allows school districts to choose from a menu of assessment techniques, such as SAT or ACT scores, or demonstration of workforce readiness in various skill areas.

A state task force created by the legislature recently to the education accreditation system to “better reflect diverse student needs and smaller school populations.” They include creating assessments that adapt to student needs, offering multilingual options, and providing quicker results to understand student progress.

The state hopes the menu of assessment options will support local flexibility, said Danielle Ongart, assistant commissioner for student pathways and engagement at the Colorado Department of Education.

“Depending on what the student wants for themselves, they have the ability to show what they know,” she said in an interview. In particular, she said, the menu allows for industry certificates, if a student knows what type of work they want to do. That includes areas such as computer science or quantum computing.

“It allows students to better understand themselves and explain what they can do, what they are good at, and what they want to do,” she said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

California’s public school students are continuing to rebound from the pandemic, with more showing up for class, more graduating and fewer misbehaving at school, according to new data released today.

The California School Dashboard, a color-coded snapshot of how students and schools are faring, showed improvements in many categories during the 2023-24 school year — a relief for schools trying to help students recover academically and social-emotionally after the 2020 campus closures.

The most notable improvement was in attendance. The percentage of students who were chronically absent, missing more than 10% of school days in a year, dropped to about 20%, a significant decline from when it peaked at 30% three years ago. Prior to the pandemic about 12% of students were chronically absent.

“This is good news,” said Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that advocates for school attendance. “I’m pleasantly surprised. … To benefit from all the services that schools are offering, kids have to show up.”

Since the pandemic, schools across the state have been doubling down on efforts to lure students back to school. Many used their federal and state COVID-19 relief money to hire outreach workers, add bus routes, host pizza parties and otherwise make it easier and more enticing to come to school. Some districts had  to solve transportation and other obstacles.

Chronic absenteeism continues to improve after pandemic peak

Those efforts paid off, Chang said. While the pizza parties helped, she pointed to many schools’ focus on improving campus climate overall. That includes counseling, social-emotional learning, stronger relationships between school staff and families, and health and wellness services.

Pandemic relief , so some districts will be scrambling to maintain these programs going forward. But the state’s recent investments in community schools, arts education, transitional kindergarten and other services will help, Chang said.

Recognition for long-term English learners 

Another noteworthy item in the Dashboard is the inclusion of a new student group: long-term English learners, or students who were not fluent in English after seven years. The reasons for these students’ delays vary, but in general they’re not receiving adequate help learning English and as a result, lag far behind their peers academically.

About 10% of students who were ever classified as English learners were considered long-term English learners last year, according to state data. Those students had some of the lowest math and English language arts scores of any of California’s 13 other student groups.

“We’re celebrating this significant milestone, that long-term English learners get the spotlight they deserve and they are no longer invisible,” said Martha Hernandez, director of Californians Together, which advocates for students who are English learners. “But now the work begins to ensure their needs are met.”

Schools and other education agencies need to work together to help families who are recent immigrants by finding translators, provide counseling to students, boost bilingual education and bring in tutors to help with English and academic skills, said Lindsay Tornatore, director of systems improvement and student success at California County Superintendents, which represents county office of education superintendents.

‘Not good enough’

Elsewhere on the dashboard, the graduation rate was 86.4%, up a bit from the previous year and higher than the pre-pandemic rate of 84.2%. But a related item on the dashboard raised alarm bells with researchers. The number of students meeting the requirements for admission to California’s public universities was up only slightly — an increase of just 3,700 students among a graduating class of 438,000.  Close to half of high school graduates are ineligible for the University of California or California State University.

“That’s just not good enough,” said Alix Gallagher, interim managing director at the nonpartisan think tank Policy Analysis for California Education. “It means the recovery has been anemic, and that’s a problem. We need a different approach, starting at the state level.”

Most California high schoolers graduate in four years

But only about half of graduates meet University of California or California State University admission criteria, also known as A-G requirements.

She pointed to some districts’ policies of placing students on math tracks that don’t allow them to meet the college admission requirements by their senior year. While not all students should be expected to enroll in four-year colleges, they should at least have the option available, she said.

The Department of Education hailed a drop in the suspension rate, among all student groups. Student misbehavior had increased after schools re-opened, and schools struggled to maintain a positive atmosphere for staff and other students. The rate dropped from 3.6% to 3.3% last year.

No major changes to format

The dashboard itself has been . The data is too hard for parents to navigate, and the color coding can be misleading, according to a report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University. 

For example, a school might earn an orange color, the second-from-lowest designation, for showing slight improvements, but its scores might actually be lower than schools that earned a red, the lowest ranking. The state said it would consider making some changes but hadn’t made any major alterations on this year’s version.

The dashboard was released a few weeks earlier than it was last year. By 2026 the dashboard’s release will coincide with the Smarter Balanced test score announcement in mid-October.   

This was originally published on .

But researchers with The University of Chicago say such data points represent a mere snapshot of student achievement for those still learning a new language, telling just a fraction of a greater story. 

They’ve been turning their attention instead to a different group of children: Former English learners who, by the time they reached ninth grade, had graduated from language support programs.

Their of 78,507 Chicago Public School students who started high school in the fall of 2014, 2015 and 2016 shows this group is thriving: They had better cumulative grade point averages and SAT scores and were more likely to graduate high school than the district average.

Their two-year college enrollment rate was also higher. 

“There is this perception that English learners are particularly struggling, that they don’t do well … that they are perpetually behind,” said Marisa de la Torre, a managing director and senior research associate at the . 

Incoming Vice President JD Vance furthered the notion that these students are a burden, when he pointed to the tens of thousands of school-age children in whose parents are undocumented.

“Now think about that,” he said in October. “Think about what it does to a poor school teacher, who’s just trying to get by with what they have, just trying to educate their kids, and then you drop in a few dozen kids into that school, many of whom don’t even speak English. Do you think that’s good for the education of American citizens? No, it’s not.”

Xenophobia and race-baiting were central to Donald Trump’s re-election efforts. The incoming president has said he will to drive millions of undocumented people from the country, a plan and  

de la Torre said the belief that all children associated with English learner programs are forever adrift is misleading and unfair to students and their teachers: It’s a far smaller subset of active English learners — those who struggle to make it out of English learner support programs — who tend to have lower grades, she said.

Jorge Macias, now a senior consultant to the Latino Policy Forum, led Chicago Public School’s multilingual program for years. He said the narrative must be changed to reflect reality. 

“State-level data and national data doesn’t capture this group properly,” Macias said, noting that 78% of English learner students in the Chicago school system transitioned out of the program by 8th grade, according to an earlier study. “And once the students exit, they actually show just as much success — if not more — in the factors that matter most for postsecondary success. “

UChicago researchers divided active English learners into categories, including long-term English learners. These students were in the program for at least six years: Many had learning disabilities and Individualized Education Programs outlining their mandated special education services.

The final category consisted of late-arriving students, those who came to the district after the third grade and remained active in the English learner program in their freshman year of high school. 

Former English learners represented 23% of the school system’s ninth graders in the years the study covered. Long-term English learners without IEPs made up 4%. Their performance was substantially lower than the district average. 

These students were more likely to enroll in a two-year-college and less likely to enroll in a four-year college — and when they did enroll in a four-year college, they had lower persistence rates., they had lower persistence rates. 

Long-term English learners with IEPs made up 3% of ninth graders in the study. Their high school performance and college enrollment and persistence rates were similar to non-English learners with IEPs. 

Late-arriving English learners, who also made up 3% of the study’s ninth graders, graduated high school at similar rates to their peers: 81% compared to the district average of 84%. But their college entrance exam scores were lower. 

Despite this, their two-year college persistence rate was markedly higher than most other students who enrolled in college.

Researchers found that while late-arriving English learners struggled with standardized tests, their grades were strong. And they were more successful than their native English-speaking peers — and former English learners — in college, suggesting their poor test performance was not predictive of later success. 

This new report builds upon earlier research in this area. Another de la Torre of Chicago Public Schools found that English learners who demonstrated English proficiency by eighth grade had higher attendance levels through elementary and middle school, better math test scores and core course grades compared to students never classified as ELs.

It found, too, that English learners who did not achieve English proficiency by eighth grade struggled with declining attendance by the middle grades and also had considerably lower grade point averages.

Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, the Latino Policy Forum’s vice president of education policy and research, said quality bilingual programs and other supports can help active English learners succeed. 

The achievements of former English learners, she said, are “a powerful reminder that bilingualism is not a barrier, but a bridge, to greater opportunities.”

School curriculum is usually the purview of education experts, but this fall it could be decided by California voters, who will vote on adding a new requirement for high school students: a one-semester class in managing personal finances.

California’s Secretary of State is poised to certify that the  is eligible for the November ballot, which would add financial literacy to the list of high school graduation requirements beginning with the class of 2030.

Students would learn about paying for college, online banking, taxes, budgeting, credit, retirement accounts, loans, how the stock market works and other topics. The issue is critical, organizers said, as students face a shifting economy and difficult decisions about college, careers and their futures.

“No one comes out of the womb knowing how to manage their credit score. It has to be taught,” said Tim Ranzetta, co-founder of a  and a chief backer of the initiative. “And right now there’s a dramatic gap between what students know and what they need to know. We have to change that.”

Voters seem to agree with him. A 2022  of adults nationwide showed that nearly 90% support a financial literacy requirement in high school, and nearly as many wished they had taken such a course when they were students. 

That’s not surprising, considering the financial woes many people incur. The average  is $8,366, the sixth-highest rate in the country, and 1 in 6 borrowers nationwide are in default on their student loans. 

Financial literacy already in classrooms

But some education experts have pushed back, not because they’re opposed to financial literacy for students but because they question whether voters are best equipped to dictate what’s taught in classrooms.

Currently, the state’s History-Social Studies framework includes a , required for graduation, that covers much of the same material proposed by the financial literacy ballot initiative proponents. Financial literacy is also included in first, second and ninth grade curriculum. First graders, for example, learn that money can be exchanged for goods and services, and people make decisions about how to spend their money.

But Ranzetta said the curriculum, which was last updated in 2017, doesn’t focus enough on financial literacy. Personal finance is covered for only a few weeks in the economics course; the rest covers more abstract economic concepts like international trade, resource allocation and the benefits and drawbacks of capitalism. Individual teachers can choose how much they want to focus on certain topics.

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond wouldn’t answer questions about the ballot initiative, although he endorsed it. Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education, also wouldn’t answer questions. 

Leaving curriculum decisions to voters is ‘a bad idea’

The proposed ballot initiative so far has almost zero opposition, but some are questioning the idea of letting voters — and not education experts — decide what students learn in the classroom. Ordinarily, curriculum in California is developed by a group of teachers and subject-matter professionals who serve on the , which meets publicly six times a year. New curriculum is subject to multiple reviews, edits and public vetting, ultimately going before the  for adoption. Local school boards can adjust curriculum according to the needs of their students.

Polikoff worries that adopting curriculum through ballot initiatives could set a dangerous precedent. Religious or anti-LGBTQ curriculum, for example, could be approved by voters, setting up costly and lengthy legal showdowns with the state Department of Education. 

Curriculum can be complicated, as well. When writing new curricula, the Instructional Quality Commission looks at the broader context, making sure students get new material every year that builds on what they learned previously, subjects don’t overlap and topics are flexible enough for teachers to adapt lessons to the individual needs of their students. Textbooks and tests are also taken into consideration. 

Legislature weighs in

Most curriculum updates and changes originate with the commission, but sometimes the Legislature weighs in. The state’s new  and  requirements, for example, stemmed from Assembly bills. Another bill, , would add computer science as a graduation requirement.

, a financial literacy bill proposed by Democrat  of Sacramento, would actually do almost the same thing as the ballot initiative. The bill would require financial literacy as a graduation requirement, although it would go into effect until 2031, a year later than the ballot measure.

Bruce Fuller, education professor at UC Berkeley, said he worries about the increasing politicization of curriculum — either from the Legislature or those pushing for ballot initiatives.

“We have these political interests unabashedly trying to control what’s taught in the classroom, instead of leaving it up to teachers and locally elected school boards,” Fuller said. “We should trust those folks to devise thoughtful curriculum that’s appropriate for their students.”

He also questioned the ever-growing list of graduation requirements. High schools only offer six or seven class periods a day, and with more required classes there’s less room for art and other electives. Some districts have started adding an extra period so students can fit in all the classes they need to take to graduate,  and qualify for California’s public universities. 

“I’m not sure how adding more required classes is going to motivate restless teenagers,” Fuller said. “With more requirements, we’re giving them almost no chance to study things they’re actually interested in.” 

McCarty’s bill  is not the Legislature’s first attempt to wade into financial literacy. A dozen bills requiring financial literacy have died or been vetoed in recent years, in most cases because financial literacy curriculum already exists and the state already has a system for adopting curriculum.

As Gov. Jerry Brown wrote in 2018 when he  that would have made financial literacy materials available to teachers: “This bill is unnecessary. The History-Social Science Framework already contains financial literacy content for pupils in kindergarten through grade 12, as well as a financial literacy elective.”

Ranzetta said the Legislature’s inability to pass a financial literacy curriculum is what spurred him to take the matter directly to voters.

“I recognize the value of the process, but it’s slow and so far it hasn’t worked in California,” he said. “The issue is too urgent and too popular to wait any longer.”     

Ranzetta grew up in New Jersey, where his father was a banker and his mother was a community volunteer who raised six children. He learned financial literacy from his parents, and assumed other young people did, too. It wasn’t until he started volunteering at an East Palo Alto high school that he realized many students are clueless about money, and that ignorance can hamper them throughout their lives. But they were eager to learn, he said, and share the information with their parents.

That experience inspired him to start NextGen Personal Finance, which offers free financial literacy curriculum and training for teachers. At least 7,000 teachers in California and more than 100,000 nationwide have participated, he said.

A class that demystifies money

At Berkeley High, Crystal Rigley Janis teaches two economics classes and three personal finance classes, covering topics she wishes she knew as a young person: how to negotiate a salary, not relying on gut instinct when investing, and avoiding individual stocks in favor of index funds.

“It took me 15 years to understand those things, and it probably cost me millions of dollars,” said Rigley, who worked for several years at a wealth management firm before going into teaching. “I don’t want other people to make the mistakes I did.”

Eliza Maier, a senior, was so inspired by Rigley’s class that she opened a Roth IRA when she turned 18 and transferred money from her low-interest savings account. The class, she said, helped demystify money and the role it can play in major life choices.

“We learned that money isn’t good or bad – it’s a tool,” Maier said. “It can help you realize your goals. It can help you be prepared for whatever happens in your life. I didn’t know anything about money when I started taking this class, but I think it’s so important, especially for high school students.”

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In addition to implementing supplementary programs before and after school and during the summer, states can recoup some of that learning time and give students a better chance at earning a diploma by utilizing .

The gives states the flexibility to implement five- to seven-year rates while maintaining the standard four-year measure. This provides incentives for schools to work with — and even bring back — students who do not don a high school cap and gown within the standard time frame.

Such a system advances more equitable outcomes for all young people, especially those in historically underserved communities whose life circumstances don’t fit a traditional graduation profile.

Students experience many barriers to graduation, all of which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. They may need more time to earn their diplomas if they are caring for a child or younger sibling, are experiencing homelessness, dropped out to find employment, immigrated to the U.S., have been incarcerated or simply need an extra year or two to fulfill their requirements.

Extended-year graduation rates reward schools for reengaging students who experience unexpected challenges, become disengaged in their education, have dropped out or after COVID-19’s disruptions. Plus, a longer runway may encourage districts to focus their resources differently than they have in the past, for instance, spending time on meaningful learning rather than .

Extended-year graduation rates have been gaining in popularity but could be used more extensively. In 2011, only explicitly included them in their accountability systems. By 2013, employed them under ESEA waivers. In 2018, included at least one extended-year graduation rate in their original ESSA plans. Since then, Idaho, California and the District of Columbia formally added five-year rates. But because Alabama, Arizona and Indiana reverted to only using a four-year rate, the current count is 34 states plus D.C.

This means 16 states (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming) and Puerto Rico could formally add at least one more year of valuable learning for their students.

These are not the only states that can take action. An additional 18 states (Alaska, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia, plus D.C.) incorporate solely a five-year rate. Adding a year 6 or 7 could entice students to persist to graduation. 

Expanded use of these additional graduation measures would be a promising sign for students and communities. According to Promise Alliance, if graduation rates beyond four years were adopted in all 50 states, the national percentage of high school graduates could increase by 4 percentage points. Since high school graduation is linked with such as increased earnings, better health and lower incarceration rates, even small gains could create substantial benefits nationwide.

Several states have already seen an increase in the number of graduates, including for those furthest from opportunity. Nebraska was an early adopter; show the graduation gap between white students and peers of color closing 2 to 4 percentage points when using the extended-year rates instead of a four-year standard. Michigan also experienced gains, including a in the six-year graduation rate for economically disadvantaged students compared to the four-year rate.The positive outcomes associated with extended year rates makes sense. Without a path to graduation, students might leave school to enter the workforce early or try to carve an alternate path forward. But given a chance to earn a diploma and the lifetime of opportunities that come with it, many choose to stick it out. Every state should give students a shot at walking across the high school graduation stage — even if it takes more time.

Outcomes are starkly different for those who have that opportunity. High-achieving Black, Latino and lower-income students who do gain access to advanced math classes in high school have better academic outcomes across multiple measures: stronger high school graduation rates, higher GPAs and greater college admission and persistence rates. They were also more likely to attend a highly selective college and earn more STEM credits there, a pathway to landing lucrative jobs in those fields.

Just Equations and The Education Trust released their report Thursday. Together, they analyzed eight years of data following 23,000 ninth graders from 900 private and public schools throughout the country, information collected by the National Center for Education Statistics. The study group was tracked through high school and college starting in 2009. 

Both Ed Trust and Just Equations advocate for educational equality with a focus on children who have been traditionally underserved. Earlier research cited in the report shows Black, Latino and impoverished students, regardless of their capabilities, are less likely to be assigned AP math courses, enroll in STEM majors or attend top-tier colleges than their wealthier, white or Asian peers.

“This study challenges the notion that access to advanced math courses is purely the byproduct of talent and academic achievement,” said Melodie Baker, national policy director at Just Equations. “Our analysis confirmed that all too often, factors such as race, wealth and privilege — rather than students’ aptitude and proficiency — can be hidden prerequisites for access to courses that lead to STEM and college opportunity.”

While 46% of high-achieving Asian students, 19% of white students, and 29% of students from high socio-economic backgrounds took college-level AP/International Baccalaureate calculus by the end of high school, just 10% of Black, 15% of Latino and 11% of lower-income high-achievers did the same. 

Race and income disparities in high school graduation rates appear to level off for this high-achieving, underrepresented group when they take advanced math courses: 99% of Asian and white students, 98% of Black students, and 96% of Latino and lower-income students graduated in four years. Four-year high school graduation rates declined among all high-achievers who did not take advanced math classes and gaps opened up along racial and socioeconomic lines, although the drop in graduation rates was starkest for Asian students and least-felt by affluent students.

“We know that it is so important for students to feel engaged and that their learning experiences are relevant,” said Ivy Smith Morgan, EdTrust’s director for P12 research and data analytics. “What this conjures for me is the anecdotes about students who are so smart but stop paying attention in class because they are not challenged. They are not getting the opportunities that align with their ability.”

Smith Morgan noted U.S. students’ performance in mathematics as compared to their peers internationally has been highly scrutinized for years, with last week’s release of the latest PISA scores showing unprecedented 13-point declines for American students and an average 15-point loss globally. The U.S., still reeling from COVID learning loss, along with other countries, now ranks 26th in its math scores. Smith Morgan said a failure to mine students’ talents will have dire economic implications. 

“What we are talking about is losing a future workforce with the skills, training and technical knowledge we need to fill all of the STEM jobs that will exist — not the ones we have right now, but the ones we have not even thought of yet,” she said. “We are shooting ourselves in the foot.” 

The study notes the disparity in opportunity starts well before students enter high school: Just 24% of Black students, 34% of Latino students, and 25% of students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds took Algebra I or higher in eighth grade, compared with 39% of white children, 64% of their Asian peers and 57% of students from higher income backgrounds. 

“Anyone who is paying attention knows that our mathematics education systems are deeply inequitable,” said David Kung, director of strategic partnerships at The Charles A. Dana Center in Austin. “Black, brown and poor students get shafted when it comes to access, teaching and advising.”

The Dana Center, which seeks to ensure all students have access to excellent math and science education, has been working with several states across the nation as part of its to revamp mathematics curriculum, making equity and student interest a top priority.  

“This report is another reminder that whenever there are decisions to be made —  to take algebra in 8th grade, to enroll in an advanced math class, to apply to college, to choose a STEM path — equity gaps open,” Kung said. “We must reform our systems so those critical transitions are smoother, especially for students from groups we have historically under-supported.”

The new study found, too, that high-achieving underserved students who took more challenging high school mathematics coursework often had math teachers who established clear goals and school counselors who set high standards. Such positive influences may have aided in their success. 

Researchers say 74% of Black and 81% of Latino high-achieving students who were enrolled in advanced high school mathematics courses went on to follow a standard process of getting into and staying enrolled at college after high school. 

Not so for those who did not: Only 58% of Black students and 53% of Latino high-achieving students who did not take these classes had that same outcome. Results were similar for students from lower-income backgrounds: 77% of those who took advanced math courses experienced standard college enrollment and persistence versus 53% who did not take more challenging courses.  

The study showed Black and Latino high-achieving students who took advanced math courses in high school had better first-year college GPAs: roughly 0.5 points higher. Lower income students had a 0.6-point gain. 

EdTrust and Just Equations recommends Congress support and incentivize state and district leaders to greatly expand access to challenging coursework in all topics, including math. 

They said, too, that the government should increase funding for whole-child support services that would allow districts to hire an appropriate number of well-trained restorative justice coordinators, school counselors, psychologists and nurses. 

States and districts should also boost professional development efforts and coaching with the goal of reducing bias and incorporating anti-racist mindsets. 

They can also automatically enroll students in higher-level math courses, like the Dallas school system, which moved from an opt-in model to an opt-out policy in the 2019-20 school year. The followed that example: Gov. Abbott, earlier this year, signed that requires the automatic enrollment of children in advanced math based on their test scores, not on a recommendation. 

The Commit Partnership, a Dallas-based nonprofit focused on education, applauded the move. Chelsea Jeffery, its chief regional impact officer, said she looks forward to other districts doing the same, not only changing their policies but providing students with the support necessary to graduate high school ready for college and the workforce. 

“We celebrate Dallas ISD for their innovative approach to this critical subject area and to policymakers for passing legislation that will benefit our students and community,” she said. 

The study classified a student as high-achieving if they passed — with an A, B, or C — Algebra I or higher in middle school. Others who made the cut scored in the highest one-fifth on a math assessment given to students in ninth grade. 

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support to Just Equations, The Education Trust, The Charles A. Dana Center and ����Ӱ��.

Lawmakers are on the brink of finally making long-sought changes to a 40-year-old statute requiring 11th graders to take exams in order to graduate from high school. 

During a June 20 Senate Education Committee hearing, senators moved two bills aimed at revamping the requirement. The first () would halt the use of the test as a graduation prerequisite for the class of 2023 and use test results to study learning loss instead, while another measure () would direct the Department of Education to find an alternative to the test starting with the class of 2026. 

“We’re aiming to now redirect the challenge and the responsibility to the Department of Education to come up with a comprehensive solution so that we can eradicate and change the statute once and for all,” said Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), sponsor of the second bill. “I’m just trying to have a remedied, long-term solution.”

Unlike , New Jersey’s high school juniors are required to take a test to graduate. Failing the test does not mean they won’t graduate, since other assessments and portfolios are taken into consideration. 

Gov. Phil Murphy waived the graduation test requirement in the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years due to the coronavirus pandemic. He campaigned in 2017 on eliminating the requirement, saying the state puts too much emphasis on the results of a single test, but a bill making that change permanent hasn’t passed the Legislature. 

The bill aimed at the graduating class of 2023, sponsored by Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Mercer), would remove the graduation prerequisite and treat the exam as a “field test” instead. Supporters of the bill say this would allow schools to study the extent and severity of learning loss and develop graduation assessments for the future that are rigorous, realistic, and achievable.

At the hearing, Turner underscored the burden the test puts on students, particularly those from urban or low-income communities. Thousands of students in the first months of the pandemic, excluding them from remote learning. A  found lower-income school districts experienced higher inequities in online learning compared to middle- and high-income districts. 

“They are the ones who are going to be suffering the most, not just this year, but in years to come. This country will be affected for years to come because this is not over,” Turner said. “We’re going to see this occur down the road because these kids lost so much during the last couple of years.” 

Ruiz introduced her bill earlier in June. On June 20, she emphasized the importance of seeking a long-term solution after legislators have “kicked the can down the road.” Lawmakers have tried multiple times in recent years to devise a new graduation exam.

Her measure would amend the current law to eliminate the requirement that the test be given in the 11th grade and require state education officials to write a new exam to test students’ proficiency in reading, writing, and math. 

For students in the classes of 2026 and after, the new graduation proficiency test would be developed by the education commissioner and approved by the state Board of Education. The commissioner would also be mandated to collaborate with school officials and other stakeholders on creating the new exam. 

The process to develop the test would begin 60 days after the bill is signed into law. 

Supporters of the bill argue students are already taking several tests in 11th grade — PSAT, ACT, SAT, AP tests — on top of deciding what to do after graduation. 

Debbie Bradley of the School Principals Association called Ruiz’s bill a “solid step forward in the roller coaster ride of state assessment requirements.”

Turner and Ruiz both agreed that while they want the current requirement to change, some form of benchmark testing still needs to be part of the education system so school officials can analyze data on teachers and students. 

Some education groups opposed Ruiz’s bill because it would still mandate testing as a requirement for high school graduation. Sharon Krengel of the Education Law Center pointed to studies showing tests can  without improving college participation.

“We’ve all been talking about Band-Aids, basically, for students who have undergone a lot of mental, academic, emotional turmoil in the last few years. It’s just time to get rid of the graduation test altogether and go with credits … that these students have put forward during their high school career,” she said.

Ruiz said while she knows the majority of states don’t require testing, the top three states for education give tests, and New Jersey is “included in that mix.”

“There’s something to be said about balance, about balance, about moving forward collectively and doing that so we can put this discussion at bay, to end, because it’s been going on for four years now,” she added.

Oklahoma recently joined several other states in requiring students to pass the same citizenship test administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in order to graduate from high school.

The measure was put forth by House Speaker Pro Tempore Terry O’Donnell who told ����Ӱ�� that people who possess a greater understanding of American government would be less likely to riot.

Citing unrest in Portland, Oregon following the death of George Floyd, and the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, O’Donnell said in June that the nation “saw a proliferation of mobs,” who, instead of pursuing change through legal channels, decided to take action on their own, with some gatherings devolving into looting, arson and other illegal activities.

“The beauty of our democracy is that there is a way to address all grievances,” O’Donnell said. “Mob violence or mob activity … is not part of the solution. It just adds to the problem.”

The move runs parallel to Republican-led efforts, including in Oklahoma, to curtail the teaching of systemic racism, or what’s often called critical race theory, in the nation’s school districts. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a measure into law May 7 that prohibits Oklahoma public schools and universities from teaching that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive.”

for high schoolers in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, North Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin, while those in New Hampshire must take their school’s own version of the test. Florida last month requiring a civics assessment for both high school students and those in public state colleges and universities. If students pass the test in high school, they don’t have to take it again in college.

In a few other states, including Pennsylvania, students are required to take — but not pass — civics exams. Karen Boback, a Republican state representative from that state, hopes to join Oklahoma in requiring students to pass the test in order to graduate.

The initiative, pushed forth on the national stage by the , a civics-focused non-profit organization based out of Arizona, has had mixed success: Kansas’s Democratic governor recently the civics test graduation mandate in her state, calling it “legislative overreach.”

Oklahoma’s citizenship test bill, which Stitt signed in late April, mandates standards in history, social studies, and U.S. government courses. It requires the study of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Emancipation Proclamation and Federalist Papers.

Opponents say much of the material has already been covered in the state’s public schools, that it adds only another unfunded mandate. Tulsa Public Schools said in a statement that it already has course requirements in place to teach students about American history and political processes, but that it will, “of course, comply with the graduation requirements put in place by the State of Oklahoma.”

O’Donnell acknowledged teachers’ efforts to date but said too many students cannot answer basic questions about the nation’s founding or government, citing a 2018 report that only 24 percent of eighth-graders performed at or above the level on a civics assessment.

The new law will go into effect for students graduating in 2022-23. School districts must offer the test at least once per school year, beginning as early as eighth grade. Students may retake the exam until earning a passing score of 60 out of 100. Those with disabilities who have an individualized education plan are exempted.

on the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services website include: What group of people was taken to America and sold as slaves? The House of Representatives has how many voting members? The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?

Oklahoma’s decision comes as the nation is actually making gains in civics education: A  published in September 2020 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found 51 percent of more than 1,000 people surveyed accurately named all three branches of the federal government, up from 39 percent in 2019 and 26 percent in 2016.

The organization suggested that recent events, including “an impeachment inquiry, a pandemic, nationwide protests over racial injustice, and a contentious presidential campaign” might have contributed to the increased awareness.

Oklahoma state Rep. Mickey Dollens, a Democrat, is a former public school teacher laid off in 2016 alongside hundreds of others because of sharp state  to education. He said the U.S. citizenship test calls for rote memorization of facts, and while each is important, they come without context and therefore do not cultivate authentic learning.

He said, too, that the citizenship test and the state’s own existing history offerings serve two different purposes and cannot be interchanged.

“It is simply not as effective as the curriculum we have now,” he said. “If that curriculum needs to be improved, I’m all for that. But to mandate that our schools take on a new standardized test without additional funding is wrong.”

Miriam “Mimi” Marton, director of the Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network at the University of Tulsa, is suspect of such legislation given the state’s history of passing some of the nation’s strongest .

“If we were in a much more neutral state, I might think it’s a good thing,” she said. “We should all be able to pass a history or civics test about our own country.”

But immigrants in her state remain vulnerable: The undocumented have long risked deportation through simple traffic stops. Legislation linking the passage of a citizenship test to graduation only further alienates and alarms those who’ve already suffered tremendously under the previous political administration, she said.

“This is so complicated,” she said. “What it says on the surface is not the real purpose. Is the real purpose to catch students who are undocumented and couldn’t answer those questions? Our state government spent a whole lot of time on this instead of dealing with desperate poverty and overall lack of medical care and instead passed legislation that is frivolous at best and punitive at worst.”

Mark Mann, a member of the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education, called the legislation “a solution looking for a problem.” He said it “bites around the edges” of other anti-immigrant policies, that it was drummed up by conservative politicians looking to score points with their base.

He doubted state legislators themselves could pass the test and worries the exam could keep some students from graduating. If that’s the case, he said, the state would likely have to create exemptions.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “I could imagine the state needing to come up with an accommodation or an alternate test.”

But Rashid Duroseau, civics program director at Democracy Prep, founded in 2005, believes the exam has merit. His charter school network, which educates mainly low-income students of color, aims to prepare “the next generation of change makers.” Democracy Prep Public Schools requires all students to learn civics. In addition to completing 40 hours of volunteering and a year-long service-learning project, they must demonstrate what the organization calls a foundational understanding of basic American history and the mechanics of U.S. government.

“Although we are not wedded to it, we currently use the USCIS Naturalization test as an assessment tool because it is an efficient and effective means of gathering the desired data,” Duroseau said.

A by Mathematica Policy Research found that enrolling in Democracy Prep increases the voter registration rates of its students by approximately 16 percentage points and boosts their voting rates by roughly 12 percentage points.

O’Donnell, of Oklahoma, noted voter participation among 18- to 24-year olds in his state is particularly low, in the nation for the 2016 election. Records further show the state came in in overall voter participation in the 2020 presidential election.

The lawmaker hopes the new legislation might change this.

“If you understand how our government works, you will appreciate it and participate in it,” he said, “whether you are Democratic, Republican, Libertarian or what have you.”