The Regents exams that New York voted in September to drop from its diploma requirements will be back in front of high school students in January and again in June. At its Nov. 9 meeting, the Board of Regents heard from State Education Department staff that the tests will keep running for at least the next three school years. Students must still sit for one Regents exam, or an approved alternative, in English language arts, math, science and social studies within four years of entering ninth grade.

What changes is what the score does. For students who graduate in January 2028 or later, a failing grade will no longer stand between them and a diploma. The replacement tests the department is building to take over the Regents' accountability role are now expected in spring 2030, later than the rollout it described in September.

Regent Shino Tanikawa put the split plainly during the meeting. "We just got rid of one of the purposes, but the other purpose remains," she said. The testing is a federal requirement with funding attached, she added, which is why the state cannot simply discard the exams.

What the federal law actually requires

The mandate comes from the Every Student Succeeds Act, the 2015 law that replaced No Child Left Behind. It obligates every state to test high school students at least once in reading or English language arts, math and science. States must then publish school performance data from those results and identify the schools that need intervention. New York added social studies when it wrote its federally approved ESSA plan, which is why four subjects sit on the list instead of three.

Nothing in the federal law names the Regents. Washington requires a statewide assessment aligned to a state's own standards, and ESSA even allows a nationally recognized test such as the SAT or ACT at the high school level. For decades New York has asked the Regents to do two jobs at once, judging individual students for graduation and judging schools for federal accountability. The September vote removed only the first job.

The law also carries a participation rule that gives the tests their weight. Schools are expected to test at least 95% of their students, and New York's proposed accountability system keeps that rate as one of its academic indicators. A second indicator is built on students' highest valid Regents scores in the four subjects. Attendance, English language proficiency and graduation rates remain part of how schools are rated.

Money is the enforcement mechanism. New York received about $8.49 billion in federal K-12 funding in 2022-23, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. That works out to roughly $3,457 per student and about 9.9% of all school spending in the state. The share looks modest beside local property taxes, which cover 45.9%, but much of the federal money flows through Title I to schools serving low-income students.

New York has tested that leverage before. In 2021, with the pandemic still disrupting classrooms, the state asked the U.S. Department of Education to waive its testing obligations, and the request was denied that April. The state canceled every Regents exam it legally could and gave only the four that satisfied the federal floor that June: Algebra I, English Language Arts, Living Environment and Earth Science.

Who is covered, and when

Current seniors in the Class of 2027 remain the last group that must pass the prescribed set of Regents exams to graduate. Education Commissioner Betty Rosa's September guidance to school leaders drew the line by graduation date rather than by freshman year. A student who finishes in January 2028 falls under the new rules even though she started high school under the old ones.

Those students will still take the exams, and their scores will still be reported, but districts will not be permitted to require a passing grade for a diploma once the new regulations take effect. Course-credit requirements stay the same for anyone who entered ninth grade in 2026-27 or earlier.

The rulemaking is not finished. The department plans to bring proposed graduation regulations to the Board by February 2027, with a final vote expected in June. Until those rules are approved, the current requirements remain in force for every student. The amendments to New York's ESSA plan, including the reworked accountability indicators, also need sign-off from Washington before they take hold.

The three-tier system of local, Regents and Regents with advanced designation diplomas would give way to a single state diploma, with distinction recognized through seals and endorsements. The department has proposed options for biliteracy, civic readiness, advanced designation and technical achievement, and students may still use Regents exams toward some of them.

Students who enter high school in fall 2029 are slated for the fuller version of NY Inspires, a competency-based model built around the Portrait of a Graduate that the Board adopted in 2025. TheStandardNY has laid out how that model replaces seat time with demonstrated skill, including projects, internships and performance-based work.

The years in between

The new timeline leaves several graduating classes whose diplomas will rest on local assessment strategies that districts are still designing. Those same students will keep taking state exams that no longer decide anything for them individually. Regent Hasoni Pratts, the parent of a New York City 10th grader, called it a "purgatory period" when the plan came before the Board in September. At that meeting, Chancellor Lester Young told colleagues he had struggled to follow what they were voting on.

Zachary Warner, the assistant commissioner who leads the Office of State Assessment, told the Board on Nov. 9 that keeping the Regents during the transition makes the move to a new test smoother. He also acknowledged the significant changes educators are already navigating. The arrangement shifts the weight of the exam from the student to the school. A ninth grader can fail the Algebra I Regents and still graduate, while her school's federal rating draws on that same score.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has faulted the state for not explaining what replaces the exams and renewed her push for control of the Education Department, though the Board, elected by the Legislature, still sets graduation rules. Until it votes on new regulations, the department's guidance to families is to keep following current course and exam requirements.