From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour will be made with the high school class of 2028 in New York State.

That class will be the first in decades who will not be required to pass in New York State Regents exam for high school graduation.

The state Board of Regents made that official on Monday.

Now, this is an issue that's been heavily debated in recent years.

On one hand, critics of the decision are concerned that it could lower the standards at a time when students need to be more rigorous, rigorously prepared for life beyond high school.

On the other hand, many teachers and students and parents have argued that the Regents exams forced teachers to spend time preparing students for just another standardized test when they could be using that precious classroom time more effectively.

Only six other states will require high school courses exit exams for graduation going forward.

Those states are Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana, new Jersey, and Texas.

So New York joins the majority there.

The current school year will be the last time New York State's part of the list, requiring this kind of an exam.

We're going to welcome your feedback on this conversation.

And we've already got a pile of your emails.

We like to think of Connections as the public square.

You can join the conversation by calling 844295.

Talk to (844) 295-8255.

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Today, we welcome two members of the New York State Board of Regents discussing the decision and more.

Wade Norwood, New York State Regent.

Welcome back to the program.

Nice to see you.

Thank you so much, Evan.

Adrienne Hale, also a member of the Board of Regents.

Thank you for being here.

Excited to be here and talk about this.

There are only 17 regents, right?

That correct.

So we got two of the 17 regents in the state who made this decision with us here.

And I'm just going to ask both of you to start out by telling us, you know, where you were on this decision, if you support it on testing.

Pointing to Adrian first.

Adrian, the floor is yours.

Yep.

So first off, this decision has been coming for a long while now.

I just want to take everybody back to originally.

It started with Chancellor Rosa's letter about reimagining high school in New York State.

I was at the Chamber of Commerce at that time.

I had the privilege of going to the Boces and talking about career technical education, workforce development, integration into high school curriculum and being a part of this process.

From the Chamber of Commerce.

So now being a regent and actually making the decision and voting on it was exceptional.

But from Chancellor Rose's letter, fast forward to 22,023, where we got our first set of recommendations from a blue ribbon commission that was convened by the Regents who preceded my membership on the board, and there was originally 12 recommendations.

I won't go through them all.

I can't remember them all, but since those original 12 that was presented to us, they have been distilled down to four, which was then called grab measures.

Now it's called New York and Spires and the four proposals that came for the Regents to transform high school in New York state was to adopt a portrait of a graduate, which was signified the various attributes, characteristics and skills you want to see our young people demonstrate to signify they're ready for life.

Post-secondary.

It was redefining credits, which is still on the chopping block.

It was removing the assessment requirement as a requirement for graduation, which you saw as vote on on Monday.

And the other piece was to move to a single diploma.

So three of those four recommendations the Regents have supported and adopted.

On Monday, we voted to just allow the Department to proceed forward on two of them.

And then redefining credits will be the last piece of really transforming high school across the state.

I can't tell you how excited I am as somebody with a workforce development background.

I know firsthand that many folks within the business community have been frustrated with young people's inability to come and be prepared for the world of work.

So these skills and attributes are the portrait of a graduate are essential, and making sure young people have experiences and ways to demonstrate their competency, proficiency and mastery of those attributes is essential.

So this is an important distinction.

You're saying that there are members in the business community who have been frustrated that high school graduates aren't actually ready to go out and work.

That's right.

You don't have skills that are necessary and what yours.

But family members, neighbors and the community at large.

But the reason I'm the reason I'm keying in on this, and I want to hear both of you on this, is you're indicating that this will raise standards.

This will better prepare us 100%.

I'll be okay.

You know what the critics are saying is this lower standards?

Yes.

So.

And I gave a very heartfelt personal speech on Monday about this, but I want to be very clear to people who are critics of that.

None of New York's most elite, yet most elite and prominent private high schools require the Regents exam today.

Okay, so that's first and foremost, they're only expected to have something called equivalency.

So that's there's that point.

The second is a standardized exam which is one snapshot in time.

Should not decide our overall assessment of this young person's readiness for life after high school.

And even with the Regents exam, or I'll call it the Regents standard to those critics.

We've still seen career readiness plummet and college readiness plummet.

So in addition to those, you know, employers, many people upon college campuses have talked about the literacy and numeracy that college graduates have on college campuses, and how many of them have to go through remediation on college campuses just to undergo the undergraduate matriculation process?

So the Regents standard has not proven to be effective.

Amongst our young people who come with a myriad of ways to demonstrate how they're competent or proficient and, across all content areas.

And that's what we're trying to correct now.

Wait, how do you see it?

I see it as a regent who was first elected in 2009.

And for people who have asked, what has Wahid Noor we've been doing as a regent, it has been building the portrait of a graduate from the grassroots across the entirety of this state, engaging the field.

Lots of town halls to really come up with a policy pathway that has now become fact.

We have this aggregated curriculum from standards, from assessment.

It is no longer that the test is the standard and the curriculum is teaching to the test.

We have completed the statutory framework of moving towards competency based graduation.

So as to make it clear we are in a new day.

The opportunity we have from the portrait of a graduate is to really respond to this digital information revolution that occurred after my children graduated.

My daughter was a member of the class of 2016.

What technology is today radically different than even from that point?

Absolutely.

Even more different than my oldest child.

And worlds away from my life.

Most of what we think of as academic research based on pedagogy is based on studies with children who existed before the pandemic.

We are not in Kansas anymore.

Toto.

This requires, in my view, and the reason why regional and I are here is we have done the work at the state level.

What must begin to work at the local level is not just frameworks for competency based assessment and instruction, but really student centered learning.

The deep relationship that has to exist between student and instructor in order to strike that inner Damon for Pi Day are to occur.

That's the piece we really need to start having vibrant conversation about at the local level.

And I'm calling on communities and school boards around the state.

Please change the conversation.

We have to start thinking differently now, and it requires us talking differently.

And the heart of education is going to be does every child find teachers with whom they can connect?

So Regent Norwood, yesterday when I mentioned we had the the new president of Suny Brockport on the program yesterday, and when I mentioned we were going to be talking to Regents today.

We got a pile of emails just yesterday, and I could just read them all day.

I'm going to I'm going to welcome more feedback as we go throughout the hour.

So there's a couple things that I noticed.

One of the things that I noticed was when this decision was reported after your decision on Monday, there were a lot of people in the New York state public who thought, well, we're going to be the only state without a graduation exam.

We're going to be, you know, we're going to be an embarrassment.

We're going to be one of 44 states that don't.

Only six states will have effectively their own state standard test now.

So New York State will join the vast majority of states that don't do this.

That was one thing I think people were confused about.

Real quick, Evan, I want to make sure I'm clear.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

The Regents exam will still exist.

Oh, yeah.

It is just no longer a requirement.

Yep.

Yeah.

So to be clear, I think six states will have a requirement that you pass a state test, right?

So New York State is going to be the vast majority of New York State will not be in a minority.

The other thing, Regent Norwood, to your point about the test, is no longer going to be the the be all, end all.

There are emails that I could read for the next half hour of people saying the well, the real world is full of tests and you have to be able to perform that way.

What do you say to them?

The real world says we teach skills.

We hire attitude.

Children should enter the workplace with the right attitude.

What's wrong with these young people?

Well, what's the role of the K-12 system?

It is to actually provide the experience of learning that carries forward the attitude that employers are looking for.

When we lament, as Socrates did years ago, it's the nature to lament.

We have to look at ourselves and the educational process.

And why did we determine that?

The things that were central to my learning, everything I needed to know.

I learned in kindergarten.

Play fair.

If you broke it, say so.

Why do we start calling those things soft skills and say they have no bearing until, my golly, they do.

And my children knew growing up.

I don't care as much as your letter grade as I care about what the teacher's comments have to say.

So let me read a few pieces of feedback, that have come in before the program.

First Charlie wrote yesterday to say yes to no more Regents exams.

My specialty when teaching in the city, especially during summer school, was prepping kids for the English Regents.

I generally was given the kids who failed the test multiple times.

I developed a plan that took the mystery out of the test and got kids psyched to take the test.

Was it ridiculous?

Probably.

But it sure was fun.

Beating the man at his own game.

So Charlie says good.

He said you taught in the city for decades before retiring.

He thinks this is the right decision.

I want to listen to a piece of sound from yesterday.

We had the new president of Brockport, doctor Dawn majors, who flair is on the program.

And I said, look, this going forward.

Many of your applicants to Brockport will now no longer have this as a piece of data for you to look at.

And this is what she said.

That pressure of of teachers having to, in essence, sort of stop what they were doing in the classroom to suddenly then just focus on getting students prepped for the region.

Is that really did that really benefit students?

And so I actually look at this, this, this change now, and I'm actually in favor of it.

I'm sure there will be folks that will say, no, we need to have those kinds of things.

I saw it as actually more of a disruption for the learning that my child, my children were in tracks to go to college.

But the stopping of the teaching and the experience and the learning to prep for a Regents exam, I don't necessarily think there was retention of information.

I don't necessarily think that was a good use of time for the teachers or for the students.

So I actually am in favor of it.

That's Brockport, Suny Brockport president doctor Dawn message to players yesterday on this program.

What do you make of what you just heard, Regent Hale?

Yeah.

So and we were talking even before the show.

So I was one of those kids she was just referring to.

Right.

I was a inner city kid who the majority of my K-12 experience was color to being taught to some form of test.

And then guess what?

It was?

Cram and dump.

After you take the test, you dump it.

You don't remember it to her point about retention, and then you lose the love of learning.

You lose the to region.

Nor was point the relationship building with an instructor and to actually be prepared to reach your maximum of full potential.

And I think for a lot of young people in places like me, I was surprised to hear her kids were on a college track, that they would even stop normal instruction to fully focus on the Regents exam and disrupt the normal curriculum process.

I was shocked to hear that because I know as an inner city kid, that was my experience as well.

And you don't think it served you?

Oh, I know it didn't serve me, and I know for sure I didn't serve many of my peers either.

Regent Norwood, what do you make of the president of Brockport?

Comment.

At first of all, I welcome and congratulate her and her new position in joining the community.

I would say her comments echo over 90% of the feedback that I have gotten this week and that I got in the years leading up to this work.

I have only had one person who did not live in the Finger Lakes region speak negatively about this to me, and it is the concern about the implementation.

The person said what I heard on Morning Joe yesterday.

Well, we know that in high performing, high wealth areas, this is going to go smoothly.

In other areas it may not.

And so we shouldn't do this until we know it can go smoothly.

If we wait until we know it goes smoothly.

We'll never do anything.

Time is up.

We must make change.

And I am delighted that our neighbors in this community welcome change.

We now must have substantive conversations in the public space that we've been having with our colleagues in local government and with local school boards.

Our local school boards have been tremendous allies in our bringing this forward.

We have to make sure Rochester, New York and all of our regional school districts are the exemplars in pursuing this.

Children who graduate, according to this portrait will be the modern day Douglass's and Anthony's and Tubman's and Twain's that we need.

Praise God, the future Justice Jackson's on the Supreme Court that we need.

The other aspect that I want to explore a little bit, I'm going to read an email from another teacher, and then we'll listen to a piece of sound from one of the reach one of your colleagues in the regions.

Michelle writes, I've taught for the last 20 years, and my conclusion is that this is the right decision for the wrong reasons.

I absolutely agree that forcing teachers to focus on just another exam, when the students treat it like an annoying hurdle that must quickly be passed and then forgotten, is a bad use of time.

We are already constrained by the many requirements placed on us.

But when I listen to the Board of Regents discuss this, they made some comments that shocked me.

One of the board members implied that students of color simply cannot perform well on standardized tests.

In my experience, that's totally untrue and it's insulting to the students.

So I'm not sure what to think about all of this.

Thank you for listening.

It's from Michelle.

She is referring, I think, to.

Let's listen to the comment I think she's referring to.

It's from New York Regents member Felicia Thomas Williams, and why she thinks students should not have to take Regents exams to graduate.

I am so thrilled that all New York State students will now be able to demonstrate their competency, which I know is the expectation in a manner that showcases their strengths.

And I think that it's very important for people to understand, because there have been certain comments that have been made that I completely disagree with, that are we dumbing down the ability for students?

Quite the opposite.

It's giving the I know maybe you've seen the cartoon where you have a fish climb a tree, where you don't assess a fish or climb a tree because fish can't climb trees.

So when she said fish can't climb trees, this is how, linguist in New York Times columnist John McWhorter responded, and just because of the invocation of race here, John McWhorter is black.

He said he thinks her comments were anti-black.

He said, the sad thing is this is normal.

She genuinely, warmly thinks her people are smart in alternate ways and that being good at tests, close reasoning and linear thinking is a white thing.

She's wrong.

And that's John McWhorter.

So let me clarify on behalf of reading Thomas Williams, I can, number one, wholeheartedly guarantee to you she did not mean that in a racial way.

What she was trying to get the public to understand is all young people have various ways where they have strengths, just like if some students learn better through practical application, some through reading, some through auditory by hearing, they also have different ways that they're really good at demonstrating what they learned.

Right.

And she's only saying that we have to give the young people the option to showcase their skills and talents in a way that best naturally suits them.

Not black students, not white students, not English language learners, but simply students at large.

She did not have a racial connotation to that.

I can wholeheartedly tell you that you agree with that, Regent Norwood.

I would hope that folks would extend grace to those of us who speak in public spaces.

We are trying to talk about difficult things in a very candid manner.

And these issues of race and gender and oppression are really, really important issues.

And as we hear in part and speak in part, we are going to not necessarily be and use our best words as we speak.

Our best thoughts.

As someone who was in the room, the vibe of the conversation and the way that I took and responded was exactly the way that I think all of our colleagues did.

I think that this question, of are we dumbing down is the fear, but we have to keep in mind, we've been in this conversation for 50 years, and in this 50 year conversation, we swung the pendulum towards measures and metrics.

And what we're understanding is measures and metrics does not allow us to truly capture and understand the educational process and its outcomes, but not because that's a white thing, not because it's a white.

McWhorter.

Right.

It is because of the fact that we chose to try and come up with measure men.

And in the 1980s, when we decided we would grade our schools, we did not realize local newspapers were published yet and tie it to real estate advertisment.

And we would create a dynamic that characterized the last 40 years that we make our residential choices based on test scores, because we think test scores drive property value instead of choosing our neighbors because we love them.

My colleagues, let us use this as the chance to finally reclaim common sense.

As the Industrial Revolution has petered out.

All of the systems created by it have proven their of a fact.

The less our system of education makes no sense to have six months of school on an agrarian calendar with children as assembly line products that move on a conveyor belt from K to an output, and then we make them up.

That's the next you left.

The next thing we got to look at from our learning loss is real.

And and there's no reason for the the ability.

Frederick Douglass said.

My hopes have never been brighter than before because what was impossible for me is now possible.

That's our opportunity.

I do have to ask Regent, how are you implying that, the Regents is going to take up the summer calendar and maybe put students back in the classroom?

I think the Regent Norwood's point.

Our school year is based on an era that is far and far gone.

And when we see just the erosion of learning because of long periods of time when students are in the classroom, even one of our colleagues, Regent Wylie, who represents Buffalo, he talked about, one of the reasons being given after two weeks off because of Easter and how that has an impact, the way the students perform on an exam.

So I'm saying is definitely something worth looking at because to your earlier remarks, too, about this new information age that we live in.

There just isn't a need for our kids to be out of school for for such a long period of time anymore.

That's going to be very interesting to debate with your colleagues.

I would go, as I believe, portrait of a graduate.

One of my children graduated from the Rochester City School District.

My other child graduated through the Hartley School.

I know the difference between elite private education and public education.

I see the portrait of a graduate and the crosswalk.

The commissioner led us through as really saying we're bringing resources and a policy approach to close that gap.

I think we also need to recognize for privileged children, school is year round.

It is an extended learning day.

I just happen to have enough zeros at the end of my paycheck to pay for that for my children, or to navigate access to it.

Why isn't that just then?

As of right, for every child in our region that you have an extended school or you're out of school, time is productive and aimed toward your joy and your learning, and that we really do understand what folks knew when I was growing up.

The idle mind is the devil's workshop.

I think there's a lot of students and their parents are going to say, we need that summer break.

There are a lot of parents and students who would say, we need that summer break, and we want it to be filled with something other than watching TV and video games that we'd like to travel.

We'd like to have exposure.

We'd like to see the world.

I'm not saying children should be sitting in classrooms.

I'm saying children should be on field trips.

They should be seeing the world.

That's right.

Like our state capital.

Our nation's capital.

But I also want to say to, to, we just always point to, there was a portrait of a private school that was given to us to juxtapose next to a portrait of a public school.

And the commissioner made it very clear.

Right.

And this was the person who this whole process began with, as Chancellor, is we want to secure our ultimate aim and goal of this effort New York inspires is to ensure an academic experience that is equivalent to any private school experience.

For our public school children.

That is the ultimate aim of New York inspires, and it will take many more things.

But these are the first steps at creating that dynamic.

Let me just read one more email.

Here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to read an email.

I'm going to let the guests respond here.

We'll take our only break and then we'll just listen.

If you've got feedback, as we talked to two members of the New York State Board of Regents, only 17 regents, two of them are on this program this hour.

Wade Norwood, Adrian Hale are with us.

The Board of Regents is in the process of making not just a decision on testing.

That's what's getting the headlines, and understandably so, because that is tied to how do you prepare students for the world?

How do you do your job to make sure that when they get a diploma, it means something valuable beyond just, well, I got into a college that they can actually think that they could go to a job, that they could perform.

And so we're talking about the decision on Monday to eliminate the requirement for graduation for the Regents exam.

Most American states do not have this kind of requirement.

New York State will join 43 other states that do not.

But for decades, New York State has required this.

And so I'm going to read Linda's email and ask our guest to respond, because we've been talking about what they're taking away, which is the requirement for this exam.

But I want to also have them tell you what is going to be in place to make sure students, when they are graduating are better prepared, that the standards are not in their in their minds, being lowered.

Because Linda is a skeptic.

And here's what she says.

She says, I hold several teaching certifications and have experience in both suburban and Ccsd school districts.

I do not believe the changes are an improvement.

Additionally, there is critical thinking involved in the current questions on existing Regents exams.

I believe that of course, those making this decision will not state that these changes lower the standards in New York state schools, but I think they do.

New York state schools as a whole will reduce their own standards, and students will learn less than they already do.

How about holding teachers truly accountable and getting rid of tenure?

I've seen many teachers hide behind tenure and simply not either learn themselves or teach.

So that is from Linda.

We've heard our guest describe why they don't think the test had value.

You've heard higher Ed describe in some places why they don't think the tested value.

Linda thinks the test had value.

And she's saying she thinks it's going to lower the standards.

So how is it not going to lower standards?

And what's going to be done to make sure standards are strong?

I'll give you both the floor there.

Adrian Hale so first of all, and I appreciate the question.

I'll just want you to know that right now, there's a portfolio of schools across the state in NASA's planned pilot program, where we are beginning to pilot various forms of assessment, some under project based learning, some which are inquiry based approach and some that are career technical education based.

So I want you understand that we're already starting to pilot the new ways that students will be able to demonstrate their competency, their mastery, their proficiency across content areas that go beyond just a standardized snapshot of the Regents exam.

I also want you to understand that a couple of years ago, the Regents actually did take a vote where we changed the way that teachers would be evaluated in New York State.

So we went from the old system to the new system.

And districts have a window of like the next, I want to say like five years to agree on a new form of evaluation for teachers.

Again, I do want to make this clear.

We do have local control within New York State, so we provide the framework and we provide the guardrails for how those negotiations and how evaluations will behave within New York.

And I'm with you.

Right.

We know firsthand that there are some pretty abysmal outcomes in Rochester.

Myself and Regent Norwood got to see some embargoed data from some of the focus districts within New York State.

Of the Regents, Rochester being one of them.

And I'm sad to say that even of the focus districts of our most at risk districts, Rochester is at the absolute very bottom, in particular in math.

Okay.

So I'm with you.

And then because when you look at those evaluation scores within the district, you'll see many teachers under the old system were considered highly effective.

So how can we have a district of highly effective teachers?

But then the worse results within the state of New York.

Those two things don't agree.

And we've took an action on it.

Obviously, you can see right now some of that's playing out in some of these new negotiations.

And the good thing is these new negotiations are taking place as we are rolling out New York inspires.

So the way this work is going to be implemented, which does require our instructional core and workforce to be a part is going to be probably took it into account in these new negotiations.

So your comment, your concerns are right on time with the actions that we've taken.

Regent Norwood, I would just make it very clear that the approach that Linda is holding until particularly going to tie test score to teacher pay, performance and tenure is the pathway we have been on that has led us to where we are not in a good place.

There has to come a point where we look at the facts and say, what we're doing requires that we do something different.

I believe it is time for us to be courageous enough to say what we say in health care, that we have to actually have a relationship with the patient in order to deliver care.

We have destroyed the relationship between community and educators and educators and their students, because we have been chasing this vision that the assessment is the standard, the curriculum and the measure met.

Assessment can't be all things.

Assessment must be what it is.

The proof in the pudding is do we have students five years from now saying, I got a rigorous education that taught me how to think independently, and I don't live my life on the device.

That's the test of rigor.

I don't give a damn about their test score because quite honestly, no one cares about my Regents scores.

No one cares about my S.A.T.

scores at age 62.

What people want to know is, who am I as a human being?

What have I contributed?

And when my eulogy is given, what will people say about me?

That should be the first damn question high schoolers are asked in ninth grade.

What is your eulogy going to say about you?

You know what?

At the high school, that's what my daughter was exposed to.

So Regent just briefly here.

I definitely take the point that the full measure of a human being is a lot more interesting than what your test scores were.

I don't even remember what my GPA was or what.

I don't, I don't, I don't in college, I don't I mean, I, I just don't it's not important.

And it was never important in any week of my life after.

Amen.

However, what you were describing, we had a conversation with, I know you know, Dan Dermott and people who work in the educational space or have worked for years who are not happy with a in their view, an addiction to standardized test is the be all, end all.

And he talked about a much more holistic way of assessing a student.

But he also talked about a way that is, number one, more subjective, less objective than most tests, most standardized tests, and more, I think time intensive when a lot of people who work in school buildings say, I don't have time for anything else.

Now we're going to do these multi level ways of assessing a student, which might be sort of high minded, but do you have the time to do it.

You have the time to do it well.

Do you have the right people to do it.

What do you think that what we're going to have to do is move from measuring efficiency and education to effectiveness?

If we shifted the mindset of measurement, what we would do is say, let's invest in more teachers, let's invest in more guidance counselors, because this does take more time.

If we're going to do more essays and go back to the Blue Book.

We're not going to be able to have just two teachers.

We're going to have that for.

We have to think differently.

And if we understand how it is, this will reduce costs in terms of onboarding employees.

Then we actually begin to see we're paying more in the education space because it's going to save us in the workforce.

It's going to save us in criminal justice.

It's going to save us in human services.

We have to think about the Scottie vest has lots of different pockets in it, and we don't have to always think about this is more spending by the schools, but rather this is sounder spending by the taxpayers.

Talking to Regents Wade Norwood and Adrian Hale, two members of the New York State Board of Regents.

More of your comments, feedback on Connections, your public square here in Rochester.

We'll come right back next.

Coming up in our second hour, it's Book Week in the second hour of the show this week, and we're bringing back the conversation with author Kyle Samuel.

Keith, Samuel's debut novel was called The Book of Low Loman, a pretty remarkable work of fiction about a man who in some ways is a lot like the real life Kyle Semel, someone with Tourette syndrome, who in the book is going to desperate lengths to cure it.

And we're going to talk about the real life and the fiction next out.

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All right Robert in Fairport on the phone next.

Hey Robert.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Thanks for taking my call.

The history of the Regents exams and the Regents concept has changed dramatically from the 1970s and 80s.

At that time, there were two tracks.

There was a Regents track for students that were believed to have an interest in going to college.

And there was a non Regents track that was for students that were going to go in the trades and so on and so forth.

At the time, the Regents exams actually provided a scholarship for some of the higher scores in the various Regents exams and so on.

This changed dramatically.

Everyone had to suddenly take Regents exams.

They were watered down at that point.

We I think that all of this is as is sort of evidence that this was we were on the wrong track by getting rid of those two tracks.

And we've been going on this wrong track for 50 years.

Robert, thanks for the phone call.

What do you think, guys?

Amen.

Cosign.

That's it.

Adrian and AME.

Ditto.

Okay.

Hello, Robert.

Thank you for that.

844295 talk.

As we talk about, to two members of the New York State Board of Regents.

They mentioned that they of course, you know, they're looking at data from a lot of different places.

And the Rochester data testing data is really tough.

You mentioned math to, you know, your personal story in a way to talk about having two kids, one go through Hali, one go through RCS.

Yes.

Okay.

Your story also, you know, is its own interesting sort of data point that, you know, you told me before the program that you weren't always getting 100 on every test, and stellar student people meet you.

Now, they might have this assumption that you are a political history nerd.

And you were, you know, doing all these things at the top of your class, but you had your own path that wasn't a very linear straight line to success itself.

When you look at the test scores, we've been talking about the the problem of over relying on test scores.

But clearly when you see those math scores, you're still putting some value in them because you kind of recoiled when you saw them.

So square that up.

For me, the tests are not the be all, end all.

But you're looking at the math proficiency in Rochester going where this is trouble.

Yeah.

So let me be clear.

Right.

So that the the the exam is a measure to assess a student's, you know, competency within a content area, but it is not the total story.

My concern is and I can't give the numbers right because it's currently embargo.

But my concern is Rochester trails the state average and even some of the other, districts of focus for the Regents.

So egregiously, we kind of are starting to think through what kind of support, what kind of approach is going to be required in places like Rochester in order to make the adoption of New York inspires this new initiative?

We're really leading at the Board of Regents to make it effective.

My entire career here in Rochester was colored by being taught to the test.

There was times I had long term substitutes.

I walk in classroom on Monday.

I get a thick packet with the rest of my classmates, and I be told to just sit down and do it.

Most of the content in the packet I was never exposed to, I was never taught.

The substitute teacher has a class full of kids with their hand up asking questions because you're asking me to know something I've never been taught and that I don't know.

And that's been the case, and that's been the experience for a lot of kids across the state.

We've never actually been exposed to the experience and the joy of learning.

So for me, what this does, especially for districts like our own Rochester and others, is it really frees both the teachers and the districts from being shackled by being their whole evaluation, being how students perform on this test to saying, now you can create more creative ways within this framework to really educate and inform the process for what works best here.

Region our way hit the nail on the head.

It's not just about efficiency.

It's about effectiveness.

It's about efficacy.

And that's going to look different in various places.

I represent the seventh Judicial District.

I have 72 school districts that I represent.

I'm in rural Finger Lakes, suburban Finger Lakes.

I'm in the city of Rochester, and I see the breadth in the district, the difference and how education looks in those in those places.

And even though there is rural poverty equivalent to what we see in Rochester, what I see in the schools is still a very different situation.

Tell me a little bit more about that.

Well, I'll because there is a lot of poverty and there is a lot of poverty.

But I'll be candid with you.

What the number one element that's required for a school to be successful is you need a lot of adults who really care about those kids.

And I think for young people in places like Rochester who come to the school building with so much life that they carry with them, sometimes that can be a very difficult thing.

And I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said, no one cares about how much, you know, until they care about until they know how much you care.

And I think that's the number one ingredient to to regional West Point.

Let's say you have an instructor with an incredible pedigree who's been all the right schools.

But if you don't have those portrait of a graduate attributes, if you don't walk in the door with a strong care and commitment for kids, despite what they might be walking through that same door is you carrying with them, that school is going to have challenges with being effective.

Well, let me read a little bit more feedback here.

Dallas says if we're going to say, what were you what will your eulogy say?

Why don't we say when you die?

How much money did you make?

What do you make of that kind of a quote?

So again, if you're just joining us, Regent Norwood said that you have a child who went through the Harley School and the Harley School students when you're in ninth grade.

Hey, what do you think your eulogy is going to say when your time on this planet is over?

What do you want it to say?

What's it going to say about you?

What do you expect your future to look like?

It's a really interesting question.

I and Dallas are saying, well, why don't we just ask, how much money do you think you'll.

I if I remember Julia's experience correctly, it started off with the young people answering.

25 years I'm back at my high school reunion.

Here's how successful I am.

Here's how I have the money I make.

But the experience over the course of the year added life to that.

Well, what happens if your spouse becomes disabled?

If your child dies?

And Julia had to say to her classmates, that's the experience my mom and dad had, because, you know, the American dream felt good for us.

Up from the slavery of our past to middle class success.

And you know what?

Your baby dies, and you find out what the real impact of African American health disparities are when you're burying two of your four children.

Education is what carried us over this.

Wow.

Because this is about preparing for life.

And I'm sorry that we turned this into a game.

But the pandemic taught us if we don't care for our babies and have them understand they must love each other.

They're going to steal our cars.

And my car.

And I was stolen three times.

We have a real problem, and we can't afford political bias right now either.

We're going to prepare for the future or we're going to perish.

And our friends in the tech company are telling us if we don't put humanity at the core of this technology and process might just kill us all.

Adrian, what would you say to Dallas?

Who says, should we be getting students to start thinking about their future incomes?

I mean, so those are two different lives, right?

And I think what region or what was trying to get at is when someone asks you, what do you believe your eulogy will say?

The assumption there is that the lives you touch will testify about how they experienced you, and how you've touched their lives, versus how much money you made, which is probably a very different live life.

Typically, you're going to have a lot of people be angry with you, because I don't know a lot of people who've been financially successful and haven't also pissed off a lot of folks.

All right.

Let me get to a very different comment here.

This is from Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart.

She said, I went to John Marshall High without Regents, AP and SAT.

How would I have gotten into Cornell?

They know which schools are high performing.

How do you prevent against discrimination?

How do you prevent discrimination against disadvantaged students?

I think that the question, or really harkens back to the earlier comment about how we shifted the approach towards the standardized exams after 1981, when I graduated.

I do not believe that our present policy approach takes away the importance of the anxiety of AP exams or of the Regents exam.

In fact, I think what they do is restore the honesty that those things are really sexy tools used by those of us who are trying to line up to go to college to help us understand what college we will be successful in.

They were not determined to be tools of who should be a high school graduate, because we used to believe not everybody needed to go to college in order to be a good person.

I still believe, as with my father, the military is a good route for young people.

My nephew and my colleague had incredible life launched because of military service that should be seen honorable.

But our high school education should prepare one to be successful pursuing that, be that a job, be it a junior college, be it just experiencing the world.

And I want real quick to direct answer to her question.

Yeah.

Preventing discrimination against disadvantage for a student who is still looking to go to Cornell, because that is not the average student.

But for students who have those kinds of aims in mind, they will still take the regions exam.

They will still provide Regents test scores when they when they apply to admissions at a college.

That's not changing, right.

The Regent exam will still be there.

They'll still have a score to put in their college application.

I also want to say not specifically to Rachel.

I went to Marshall High School as well.

I'm class of 2007.

The Marshall I went to, I guarantee you, was very different than a marshall you went to, because by the time I got there, there was no AP, there was no IB, there was no kind of gifted programs at all.

And I went to Yale University by way of the United States Marine Corps and Monroe Community College.

So those paths will always exist, for people who, at set high, aims for themselves and want to go to elite institutions.

And guess what?

There was a different pathway from me to the Ivy League.

You.

I didn't have to go straight from high school.

By the way, I have a regions exam.

I went from the military to a community college into Yale, too.

Right.

And what I want to make clear is we're not limiting those, though, those standards.

We're not also lowering those standards.

What we're doing is creating multiple pathways for young people to still achieve and reach their goal.

I'll pile in just one last thing that add on, which is to also note that my ability to attend and graduate from the U of Our was not just made pass possible because of my high S.A.T.

scores and, region scores.

It was also the fact that my mom, through the union, had tuition benefits that made it affordable.

Opportunity and access is not just what happens for the child.

It's what's happening for the parents.

And that's where we need to be focusing as well.

By the way, just to be clear here, the Regents test will still be offered starting for the class of 2028.

You can take it if you want to.

Yes.

Correct.

Yes.

Okay.

It's just not going to be a requirement for graduates.

Correct.

Okay.

So students will have to decide and they'll work with their families and their guidance counselors just like they do.

And a lot of different issues.

But it will not be a requirement.

Okay.

Last couple of minutes here.

Before the program began I was talking to the members of Regents here about the fact that there's a lot of reporting on New York City's elite schools like Stuyvesant and there's a look at the declining number of black students who are showing up in the halls there.

And, of course, number one, I think everyone agrees, like the numbers are shockingly low and it's a problem.

Then there is, and I think, an understandable jump to say, well, there's something very racist in in the admission, but then there's a little bit of pushback that says there is a bigger problem that says a lot of black families don't even know that there's gifted programs, don't even know that there's alternative pipelines.

And opportunities, and they are not being reached.

And this is not working for everybody.

Equally.

Adrian, as someone who was kind of in that boat yourself, do you agree with the criticism and what can be done?

I do think that there's a lack of knowledge and information in a lot of families who are dealing with working class issues, working poor issues, or just knowing the world of possibilities that exists outside of the world that they live in.

So we definitely got to breach the information barrier.

But I also think we need folks who can identify young people who have, skills and abilities and talent who might have been placed in a classroom that really isn't allowing for that.

I will say that I was one of those young people too, but I also wanted to to go back in on kind of some of the comments and remarks that were made amongst, our peers earlier this week.

It's important that we stop believing that just because you go to a school like Stuyvesant, you are our most gifted and talented young people.

I think a lot of the folks right now that we identify as our most gifted and talented are really just our most resourced.

You understand?

And the real reason that we're juxtaposing the portrait or a profile of a private school with the portrait of a profile of a public school, is to show that the only way to really identify gifts and talents within our young people, and most importantly, to ensure that all of our young people in all really meaning all, is to ensure there is as close to parity as possible in the educational experience that they're having.

And that's what we're trying to create within the public school system.

Now that be honest, I was seeing in Brooklyn, the most prominent private school will be saying it's $50,000 a year for first grade.

Okay.

You think they worried about the reader's exam?

They don't even take the Regents exams.

Okay.

So?

So my only point is we have to build.

And what we're trying to do now is build our system around our young people, not build a system, force young people into it.

And when they fail, blame them and not look at ways we can improve the system.

Two members of the Board of Regents spending the hour.

Will you guys come back sometime?

Of course.

Absolutely.

Well, listen, it is an open door because, you know, you're making a lot of policy and doing a lot of work, and there's only 17 members of the Board of Regents.

And it is very important for us to understand how you're making your decisions, what the conversations are like, what the goals of policy are.

And maybe, in your view, what is being understood or misunderstood in the public.

So Wade Norwood, Adrian Hale, both regents come back any time.

Let's talk very soon.

Thank you ever.

Thank you very, very much.

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