NY regent: Testing students is like asking a fish to climb a tree

New York students will be able to graduate without passing tests in reading, math, science or social studies, the state's Board of Regents voted on Monday. Passing the Regents exams will be optional, reports Matthew Haag in the New York Times. Each district will decide who deserves a diploma. Expect graduation rates to hit 100 percent.

Regents denied they were "dumbing down" education, writes Thomas Stevenson in The Post Millennial. Students will have different ways to "showcase their strengths, said Regent Felicia Thomas-Williams, citing a cartoon that implies it's not fair to give the same exam to different animals. "You don't assess a fish on climbing a tree because fish can't climb trees," she said.

The cartoon often is accompanied by a quote falsely attributed to Albert Einstein: "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Einstein never said it. He didn't think genius was universal. And he expressed no opinion on the self-esteem of fish.

Hispanic and black students have much lower scores on Regents exams than Asians and whites, so Thomas-Williams' analogy would make non-Asian minorities the fish, biologically incapable of academic achievement. Presumably Asians are monkeys, biologically fit for academic climbing. Perhaps New York's white students are cats, capable of climbing if not declawed.

Or, perhaps, this is a really stupid analogy. All New York students are human beings, members of the same species. If any are incapable of learning, why are they required to attend school?

"Sadly, this is normal," tweets John McWhorter, a Columbia linguistics professor. Thomas-Williams "thinks her people are smart in 'alternate ways' and that being good at tests (close thinking and linear reasoning) is 'white'."

That thinking implies "Black people are less intelligent than others and should settle for excellence in sports and entertainment but not in academia," he wrote in a New York Times column. It's racist.

While Regents exams are optional, all students -- fish and monkeys -- will be required show they meet the fuzzy Portrait of a Graduate goals, such as "academically prepared, creative innovator, critical thinker, effective communicator, global citizen, and reflective and future focused."

Students are supposed to “establish their readiness” through “performances, portfolios, assessments, [and] presentations,” and possibly “real-world projects” and “work-based learning," writes Fordham's Meredith Coffey, who predicts "disaster." Districts don't know how to measure these attributes.

Massachusetts also dumped its well-respected state exams and adopted a portrait with "hokey competencies" such as “self-aware navigators, Coffey writes. But Massachusetts won't be awarding diplomas for shoebox dioramas and baking-soda volcanoes. The state will require coursework and end-of-course exams to qualify for a diploma. The exams will be written and scored by the state, not by classroom teachers.