Regents exams help accomplish a lot
Regents exams help prepare students for success as well as allow us to assess academic progress, a reader writes. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Regents exams help accomplish a lot
Andrea Vecchio of Long Islanders for Educational Reform says that keeping the Regents exams helps taxpayers evaluate “how the money [for school budgets] is being spent” [“New York should keep its Regents exams,” Opinion, July 8]. I agree.
Regents exams help prepare students for success as well as allow us to assess academic progress. Newsday’s editorial says, “We take tests to drive a car . . . to be licensed in certain jobs, even to become certified to teach” [“Don’t abandon Regents exams,” Opinion, June 13].
The exams are at worst useful for weighing how well the student has learned necessary lessons; at best, they are an adequate gauge of the educational system’s health.
Regents tests are far from perfect — any one exam is not enough of an evaluative tool of student achievement. However, a worthy exam is useful to students, educators and parents; it doesn’t have to “come at the expense of creativity, passion or motivation.” Newsday’s editorial board and Vecchio are right in discussing whether our schools are cultivating student success.
— Hank Cierski, Port Jefferson Station
Having retired from teaching after 30 years, I did a bit of research. This Regents idea was a “plan” to be followed by statewide meetings to assess viability.
I would suggest that interested parties (all of us) formulate what we believe is needed to assess student readiness: surely reading, writing, speaking competence, financial literacy, algebra, geometry, earth science, history, and geography, are necessary.
A diploma would indicate the student is ready to work and contribute to civic life. An advanced diploma would indicate college readiness.
Unfortunately, however, until education in New York — and all states — is equitable, I see little point in arguing about assessment.
Unless and until we see all students as worthy of a world-class public education and work together to provide it, assessment is like a food review of a meal only a few can access.
— Linda Olson, Ridge
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