There's like open meetings laws.

Oh, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's New York City Council hearing for the Committee on Education.

If you would like to testify, you must allow a witness slip with one of the sergeant at arms, even if you signed up already online.

Just a reminder, there is no food or beverages allowed in this room, and please turn off all electronic devices.

Chair, we are ready to begin.

Just I know we haven't started with further record.

Um she's my twin sister.

We we look identical twin, but it's fine.

Thank you, Amoy.

Um everyone, I'm Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, former public school teacher and student and proud chair of the committee on education.

Welcome to today's oversight hearing on portrait of a graduate.

I firmly believe the most important element of a school system is a basic question that we talk about with our students.

How do you know you're doing a good job?

We have measures of assessment, and I see time and again that whatever gets assessed gets the investment.

Whatever you're incentivized to do, you will do.

But what gets measured?

The regent's exams.

Yet in my time as a high school special education teacher here in our great city, it quickly became painfully clear that the Regents exam, the measure of whether or not a student graduates never actually measured what we want our students to do and who we want them to be.

ELA exams that don't actually require you to read a whole book, global studies exams that don't ask our students to conduct their own research and independently find multiple sources to support or refute a claim.

The list goes on and on.

And to make matters worse, they aren't always rigorous, just sometimes convoluted.

Here in the city, we consider 65 passing, yet the algebra regents requires the students to earn 35% of the points to get a passing score.

In other words, you can get half the multiple choice questions right, none of the short answer right, and still walk away with a 62, very close to passing, but hardly a measure of whether a student deeply understands the material.

Seven years ago, the Board of Regents and the New York State Department of Education, or NICED announced a comprehensive review of the state's high school diploma requirements.

The review concluded that the state's graduation measures were not serving all students well, and in particular were not serving students of color, students with disabilities, English language learners, and students from low-income households.

I will add that the graduation requirements don't even ask.

We want our students to do and be that same questions.

Students who engage in rigorous educational experience and use their skills to better their communities.

And all the elements that we see in the schools, from journalism to music and arts, photography to debate, team, uh the debate team and math clubs, things that we know involve rigorous education, community-mindedness, civic engagement.

They're not meaningfully measured by the department.

Yet they are the things we are most proud of in our school system.

And when I come visit a school, it's what the teachers and the principals are most proud to share.

In the years that followed NICED's decision, they gathered stakeholder input, convened a blue ribbon commission on graduation measures in 2022, and received the commission's recommendations in November of 23.

In July of 2025, the Board of Regents adopted the portrait of a graduate or portrait, a framework describing what every public school student should know, be able to do and embody by the time they finish high school.

The aim is a system in which students can demonstrate proficiency in more than one way through options that meet the needs of all learners.

Under the portrait, a New York State graduate will expect to be one academically prepared, two, a creative innovator, three, a critical thinker, four, an effective communicator, five, a global citizen, and six reflective and future focused.

Just one week ago, on September 14th, the Board of Regents authorized NISA to move forward with the remaining pieces of this transition beginning in the 27-28 school year.

Students graduating in 27-28 school year or later will earn a single New York State diploma without separate diploma assessment requirements.

That means today's high school seniors are the last class who will have to pass the regents exam in order to graduate.

I see no one upset by this.

Regents exams are not disappearing completely.

NICET has said the exams will remain as measures of achievement in state learnings of state learning standards, and state assessments will continue to be administered to satisfy federal requirements under every student succeeds act.

What is ending is the requirement that students pass them to earn a diploma.

In its place, districts will be expected to assess students according to local developed strategies.

This shift puts a great deal of weight on the New York City Department of Education.

NYCID's own transformation timeline schedules the release of portrait rubrics and guidance for this school year, and NICET had has committed to releasing additional implementation guidance by summer 2027.

Regulatory amendments to part 100 of the commissioner's regulations are not scheduled to reach the board as a discussion item until February of 27, with adoption anticipated in June of 27.

As of last week, advocates were telling the regents that schools still do not know how they will measure measure proficiency for students currently in grades 9 through 11, students who will be affected in less than a year.

Implementing this vision across the nation's largest school district will be an enormous undertaking, and New York City will be doing it on a timeline the state has not fully yet defined.

In March, Chancellor Samuels signaled that the DOE plans to ramp up its work on portrait and restructure this cabinet to create a senior position, supervising high school leadership.

That division was filled by Dr.

Alan Chang, who previously oversaw outward bound schools, the international network, uh serving newcomer immigrant students, and New York Performance Standard Consortium Schools, a portfolio that includes some of New York City's most established performance assessment models.

Beyond that appointment, the DOE has now publicly announced an implementation plan, professional development program, or guidance to schools on the portrait.

So today we will ask how is the city preparing to implement the portrait framework across New York City public schools?

What is being done now for students in grades 9 through 11 and beyond?

And who will graduate under the new system?

Are you expanding work-based learning and other performance-based opportunities in the meantime?

What are you learning from consortium schools which have assessed students this way for decades?

And how are you coordinating with NISAD on these issues?

The Portrait has the ability to radically transform our school system in a way that will finally allow our schools to fully invest in programs that we know actually benefit students and allow our students to display their vast knowledge and skills in ways unconstrained by poorly written or poorly graded regents exams.