I took 8 of the NYS Regents exams required for the so-called "Advanced" HS Diploma.  There were 3 for Math, Algebra, Geometry & Trigonometry.  Science had 4, Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry & Physics.  I only took the last 3 of those because I didn't take Earth Science, better known as "Rocks for Jocks".  ;D   That was the science class dummies took to fulfill their requirement of having at least 1 science course during HS.  I took the Amerikan History and English exams also.  They also had Foreign language exams, but I didn't bother taking the Spanish one, though I took the required 2 years of a foreign language.  I hated that class, found it very boring.

The tests were good basic science, not college level like the AP tests but if you could pass them you had a decent foundation for going into a college class already knowing the terminology and basic concepts, making understanding college textbooks easier.  I didn't take the AP tests because I was a lazy HS student, I didn't want to work any harder than necessary. lol.

I also taught the science exams during my short tenure as a teacher in a LI Public Skule.  My students generally did not do too well. lol.  They were even less motivated than me during HS and weren't good test takers. 

Any pretense that there are any minimum standards of proficiency or that a HS Diploma means anything besides the fact you attended are history.  Rather than admit that the education system is a complete failure, they just declare knowing any of this stuff as unnecessary.  Which in fact it is for many of the students who will never need to know any of it for the jobs available that they take.  The few highly paid tech jobs in society are gobbled up mostly by the kids of professional level parents who send them to private schools.  The remaining are taken by the 1% of high IQ kids who are autodidacts and can learn in any school just by reading the textbook.  OK, maybe it's 10%, that's about what I found while teaching in a typical lower middle class HS.  Thee parents in that community either were in goobermint jobs like cops, firemen, bus drivers and garbagemen or in the trades in plumbing, electrical or auto mechanics.  Salesmen and Real Estate agents also.  They had no need to learn chemistry, or with the invention of the calculator even how to add and subtract.

If they had dreams of making big money, it was in music or acting or sports.  Or more realistically, as Drug Dealers, and occasionally in legitimate bizness like opening a restaurant.  Quite a few went into the military also with dreams of becoming a pilot or if they were the tough guy type who liked Rambo, Mercs or Bodyguards.  The academic subjects of HS simply weren't relevant what they figured to do with their lives after HS.

What also was lost though was the ability to think in abstract terms, which is why they are so easily manipulated by politicians espousing one ideology or the other.  This has already happened though, all that is going on dropping the exams is acknowledgement of reality.  There's no reason to keep the tests, not enough kids can actually pass them.

It's hard for me to imagine what life must be like today in the typical HS classroom, for the students or the teachers.  It has to be incredibly depressing.  So it goes.

https://nypost.com/2024/06/12/opinion/new-york-is-about-to-make-its-high-school-diplomas-worse-than-useless/

New York is about to make its high school diplomas worse than useless

RE