Metro

Fears Regents exam will kill grad rates

Don’t know much about history.

For the first time, city students’ long-running struggles with the Global History Regents exam could mean fewer sheepskins for seniors, the latest results show.

That’s because this year’s graduating class is the first required to pass five exit exams with high marks to get a diploma — including the Global History and Geography exam that just 56 percent of test-takers passed last year.

The second-lowest citywide pass rate among the five required exams was 62 percent in math, according to data obtained exclusively by The Post.

The city’s rising four-year graduation rate hit a high of 65.1 percent in 2010 — but that was when students only had to pass three of five Regents exams with high marks.

With the old passing mark of 55 (out of 100) now raised to 65 on all exams, educators are fearful that graduation rates could drop significantly if students can’t overcome the world history hurdle.

“We’re definitely concerned … we have a much higher percentage of seniors where Global History is holding them back from graduating,” said one Manhattan principal. “It’s definitely going to be a real challenge.”

Most students take the Global History and Geography Regents exam after two years of a single course that lasts through ninth and 10th grades.

Teachers and principals said it’s the hardest exam for most kids because it’s the only test that incorporates two years of content rather than one.

“You’re not asking general things [on the exam], you’re asking very specific things — with no idea of what’s going to be on the test,” said John McGarry, a Global History teacher at Eagle Academy for Young Men in The Bronx. “If you don’t pass it your sophomore year, now you’re asking someone to remember something they learned two or three years ago.”

As for the other exams, 69 percent of students passed the Living Environment science Regents last year — up 5 percentage points from 2010.

Nearly 76 percent of students passed the English Regents last year — up 1 percentage point — while the pass rate for US History dropped by nearly 3 percentage points, to 69 percent, last year.

While performance in Global History has come a long way from the dismal 2007 pass rate of 46 percent, it’s also consistently been at the bottom among the five core exams.

“I know that the city is very concerned about that, [but] I have not heard anybody address that situation,” a high-school principal told The Post. “It has been the lowest Regents [score] for a couple of years now.”

Last year, the state Board of Regents proposed breaking up the two-year course into separate single-year courses — with a test after each.

But a state Education Department spokesman said there has been no movement on that proposal, which was contingent on funding to create new tests.