New York City Cancels School Exams Again Due to COVID-19

New York High School Regents exams, scheduled for January, have been canceled due to a spike in coronavirus cases, the state Department of Education said on Dec. 21. New York Post.

Annual January tests canceled for second consecutive year amid winter wave of pandemic COVID-19.

“Last week, New York set a terrifying record. More cases of COVID-19 have been reported in one day than ever before, State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said. - This means January Regents exams cannot be run again safely and with equal access throughout the state. ”

The Department of Education said it will ask the state's Board of Trustees to change the requirements so that students due to graduate next month can do so without having to take mandatory exams.

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Before the pandemic, about 250 schoolchildren routinely took their January exams, according to the Department of Education. Regents exams, scheduled for June, were also canceled last year due to the pandemic. Then the students were freed from the need to take them to graduate from school.

Activists are outraged

Education activist Mona Davids, founder of the New York City Parents' Union, opposes the cancellation of exams. She called it "part of a movement to simplify the curriculum and remove all other objective reviews of student performance."

She also suggested that teachers' unions were behind the measure.

“The teachers union does not want an objective measure of standards to determine whether students are doing well because the results will be reflected in teachers,” she said.

Both the United City Teachers' Federation and the New York State United Federation of Teachers declined to comment.