Statewide graduation rates for the high school class of 2021 rose to 86.1% — up 1.3 points from the previous year, the state Education Department announced Wednesday.
Diploma rates statewide have improved by a total 9.4 points over the past decade, the department added. Rates include seniors who graduated in August, as well as in June.
Education officials noted, however, that there are broad inequities in graduation numbers by race and ethnicity. A full 90.4% of white students obtained diplomas in 2021, compared with 80.3% of Blacks and 80.2% of Hispanics.
“We know educational opportunities are not equally available to all students,” said Lester W. Young Jr., chancellor of the state’s Board of Regents, in a statement. “Every student can succeed when given the support to do so.”
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa added that the Regents and their staff in the education department are reviewing the state’s graduation requirements “to allow students multiple ways to demonstrate they have the knowledge and skills to graduate.”
Last year’s graduates dealt with more than a year of pandemic-driven masking, remote instruction and quarantines. Thousands of those students also missed many of the state’s Regents exams that, until then, had been required for obtaining diplomas.
Exams were first called off in June 2020, following mass shutdowns of schools across the state. This was quickly followed by cancellations in August, and again in January 2021.
Exams resumed last June, under orders from the Biden administration. But this round was limited to minimum federal testing requirements in English, algebra and basic science.
Regents exams in advanced math and science were not administered that month, and neither were tests in Global History and U.S. History and Government. Social-studies educators worry that the two history exams, which are not required by federal law, might eventually be scrapped altogether.
“Nobody that graduated from high school in the last two years has taken a Regents history exam — that’s quite a lot,” said Jay Corcoran, chairman of social studies at Walt Whitman High School in the South Huntington district.
Corcoran also serves on the board of the Long Island Council of the Social Studies. He and other educational leaders said they understood the concerns over health risks and other factors that led to temporary suspension of exams.
Still, many voice concern that students could be graduating without the knowledge and skills expected upon completion of high school.
“Students were home, they could fall asleep and you really didn’t know how much they were learning,” Corcoran said.
Gloria Sesso, a retired school administrator and co-president of the social-studies council, agreed.
“There was no standardized measure for what students learned or didn’t learn,” she said. “You can be easily manipulated if you don’t know your history and geography. It’s scary almost.”
The state Education Department has tentatively scheduled a full round of Regents testing, including history exams, during seven days in June. However, the department has not yet announced whether planned testing will proceed.
“No decisions have been made,” an agency official said Tuesday.
Check back for updates on this developing story.
John Hildebrand is Newsday’s senior education writer and has covered school news and policy issues affecting Long Island for more than 40 years.
