Unfortunately, student newspapers are increasingly rare. A national found that fewer than half of high schools had student newspapers in 2021, down from almost two-thirds a decade earlier. The situation is even worse in New York City, the so-called media capital of the world, which must fully implement its “Portrait of a Graduate” framework by the 2029-30 school year. A found only 27% of the city’s 400-plus public high schools had a student newspaper — and that number was even lower among schools serving high-poverty communities and those with the lowest graduation rates. 

For five years, the nonprofit I lead, Press Pass NYC, has been addressing this gap by training teachers to advise student-led news teams, both online and in print. We’ve partnered with more than 40 schools across the city, launching brand-new news teams or revitalizing those that may have closed or had trouble getting off the ground. 

Because newspapers are no longer so visible or easily obtained as they were when New Yorkers used to leave them on buses and subways, many teens have never seen one until joining a news team. I realized this when I visited schools to watch how the teachers and students are working together. I got a few bewildered looks when I asked some students what kind of artwork or photo they thought should go with their articles. But as a former reporter, I was thrilled to see how much they love journalism when they realize what they can do with it.

Middle and high school students spent last year writing about controversial new policies like the city’s school phone ban. At one school in Chinatown, an editorial against the ban revealed that for students to use during class. A student at a Queens high school told me how interviewing people for an article on immigration taught him that writing a news article is different from an opinion piece. “ This is this person’s life, this is their story and you’re listening and you’re resonating,” he explained, with reverence. 

A Bronx River High School student, Lathania Williams, won a for teen journalism for her report on the impact of immigration enforcement on her community. “I didn’t know my voice could reach that far, or that I had power in my writing,” she said. The news team at a school in Brooklyn that a school lockdown had been caused by immigration enforcement agents (it wasn’t). One student who works on the publication said the article, “let people know what actually really happened instead of the lie or the rumor.”

At a time when 84% of U.S. teens have a of journalism, student newsrooms create a source of accurate local news, showing the whole school community the difference between journalism and the unvetted information kids get from social media. In the process, students learn through a collaborative workplace driven by a shared mission with deadlines and standards — the same type of skills “Portrait of a Graduate” standards will be looking for.

St is far more complicated than simply finding a teacher willing to advise one. An effective adviser must understand journalistic ethics, interview skills, audience engagement, newsroom management and the legal and editorial responsibilities that come with student journalism. Those professional skills cannot be acquired through a weekend workshop. And while artificial intelligence can help a student brainstorm questions or polish a headline, it can’t substitute for an adviser who knows when a source needs to be corroborated, when publishing could put a student at risk or when an administrator is improperly trying to influence editorial decisions.

Building those skills requires sustained professional development, practice and support. My colleague Lara Bergen, who founded Press Pass NYC five years ago, learned this the hard way. A former teacher, she had started a student newspaper at her New York City public high school and was thrilled to see how well it engaged her students. But she had zero training in journalism, and that limited what she could accomplish. Her solution was to create a three-year, in-depth Journalism Adviser Fellowship for teachers, a cohort model where teachers learn together from experienced journalism educators. 

This type of training is essential for a school-based newsroom to last. Unlike core subjects, very few states license teachers specifically to teach journalism. In most places, including New York, the subject is folded into the English Language Arts curriculum, which means an ELA teacher can get handed a newspaper or yearbook to advise with no real journalism training. Because requirements differ widely by location, the Journalism Education Association offers a designation for teachers to prove they are highly qualified.

For student journalism to help prepare the next generation of citizens, schools have to stop treating the person running the newsroom as just another teacher with room in his or her schedule. Journalism advising deserves professional preparation and ongoing support, and schools must treat advisers with the same respect as any other educator. That means building journalism into teacher credentialing, funding the sustained training that advising requires and counting the work of a student newsroom as evidence that a graduate can think critically, communicate clearly and engage as a citizen.

Last summer, the state formally adopted its Portrait framework, committing to a new vision of what it means to earn a diploma in New York, one that goes beyond standardized tests to include skills like critical thinking, communication, and civic readiness.

For decades, we have relied on narrow measures of success that fail to capture the skills students need for college, careers, and civic life. Portrait of a Graduate frameworks represent a genuine effort to fix that. But across the country, early adopters have learned a painful lesson: creating the vision is the easy part. Most systems never make it real.

of more than 100 districts that had created Portraits found that too many completed their framework, “hung a poster on the wall, felt good about their effort, and promptly moved on to other initiatives.”

The result is predictable. Frameworks get layered on top of existing systems rather than woven into how students actually experience school. Without real changes to curriculum, assessment, and expectations for student work, a Portrait of a Graduate becomes exactly that: a poster on the wall.

By the end of 2027, New York state is planning to completely phase out Regents exams and, instead, implement a new framework. This approach emphasizes not only content knowledge, but the development of skills such as critical thinking, creativity, communication and the ability to navigate an increasingly complex world. 

The shift away from Regents exams and toward a more holistic framework like one that Portrait of a Graduate represents presents a genuine opportunity. Not just to change how students are assessed, but to rethink what New York’s public education system prioritizes — real-world skills and holistic development over test scores.

For decades, education policy focused heavily on measurement. From No Child Left Behind to the Every Student Succeeds Act, the dominant theory of education reform has been to define measurable standards, test consistently and hold schools accountable for results. The intention was serious: raise achievement and close persistent gaps. But after nearly 25 years, outcomes remain uneven. In many places, proficiency has barely moved, even as educators and parents confront rising levels of student anxiety, disengagement and mental health challenges.

Now, as the state moves away from the Regents and begins building toward the Portrait of a Graduate, the question is no longer only what is measured, but whether educators can build a curriculum that actually helps students develop the skills the framework demands.

These are not developed in typical classroom settings alone. They are built through experience: sustained practice, collaboration, feedback and the opportunity to perform and communicate in real time. Some of the most powerful environments available for developing these capacities already exist, though they are too often pushed to the margins of the school day.

They exist in music and the arts.

In a music classroom, students learn to listen deeply, adjust in real time and collaborate toward a shared goal. They develop discipline through practice and resilience through repetition, and they learn to manage pressure while communicating something meaningful in front of others. These are not simply artistic experiences; they are cognitive and human ones.

Music doesn’t just engage the brain, it changes it. In just a few years, children who study music show in the regions responsible for processing complexity and in the pathways that connect the entire brain. This is not enrichment, this is development. And the evidence goes further: Research has consistently shown that structured music training strengthens — the very capacities that support the skills included in the Portrait of a Graduate framework. 

But beyond the research, children’s experiences are just as compelling. Students who have music classes daily develop not only skill, but , focus and a sense of agency. They begin to see themselves differently — not just as learners, but as contributors and creators.

For more than a century, the Regents exams signaled what New York’s education system valued. Now, the Portrait of a Graduate is redefining what student success looks like, shifting the focus toward the capacities young people need to thrive in the world beyond school. It’s up to educators to build a curriculum that genuinely develops them.

The Portrait of a Graduate asks schools to develop students who can think critically, communicate clearly, collaborate under pressure and navigate ambiguity with confidence. Music education has been doing exactly that in classrooms across the state for generations. The research confirms it. The students who have lived it demonstrate it.

As New York moves away from the Regents exams and redefines what it means to graduate, music education may be the most important curriculum for achieving the student success New York state is after.