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World history is so yesterday.
The state Board of Regents is mulling changes to graduation requirements that would allow students to earn a diploma without passing an exam in global history.
Among the measures debated in Albany yesterday was one that would allow students in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs to replace the challenging global-history exam — which only 56 percent of city students passed last year — with a test that measures vocational skills.
Another proposal called for substituting an extra math or science test for the global-history exam — in order to give students interested in engineering an alternative pathway toward graduation. The proposed changes would take effect in the 2013-14 school year.
This year’s senior class is the first that’s required to pass all five Regents exams — global history, US history, math, English and living environment — with a score of 65 or higher in order to earn a high-school diploma.
The passing mark has been gradually raised from 55 over a number of years.
Several of the 17 Board of Regents members said they worried that making global history optional would marginalize a topic they consider essential for students to master.
“We owe it to students to provide them the background for citizenship. In today’s world, citizenship is not US history and institutions, it’s a global discussion,” said Regent James Dawson. “I think this proposal really goes a bit too far . . . There’s no reason why if we want to have a CTE Regents exam — even as a required exam or as a choice — that we can’t add a sixth exam.”
State Education Commissioner John King and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said they weren’t pushing for the elimination of global history — which would still be a required course and an optional exam — but simply seeking to move past a “one-size-fits- all” approach to graduation.
They said without substituting one graduation requirement for another, districts wouldn’t put more resources into career, technical or engineering programs because of the concern about getting students over the global- history hurdle.
The exam, which covers two years of study, has had the lowest pass rate among the five required tests for years.
“It is not a policy that will come without challenges and without trade-offs,” said Tisch. “The question is: How do you develop the trade-offs so you don’t cut off educational necessities? And I think that’s what we struggle with.”
The struggle is nothing new.
In 2001, the Board of Regents rejected a similar proposal from former city Schools Chancellor Harold Levy that called for exempting vocational students from having to take all of the Regents exams in order to graduate.
“We believe the skills and knowledge embodied in those five Regents exams are needed by every child,” then-Regents Chancellor Carl Hayden said at the time.