Exclusive | Ex-Gov. Pataki, who put Regents in place, rips incredibly stupid axing of tests: Really sad day for New York

Gov.Kathy Hochul and her Dem cronies are dunces for allowing the dumbing down of the state’s high-school-diploma requirements by ditching the Regents exams, says the ex-gov who helped put the tests in place.“Getting rid of the Regents is incredibly stupid,” said George Pataki, the Republican three-term New York governor from 1995 through 2006, to The Post.“It seems like the Education Department’s main function right now is to disguise the fact that too many New York State schools are failing to educate our kids,” Pataki said.

“So instead of doing the appropriate testing so that corrective measures could be taken to improve [performance], they simply get rid of the tests to hide their failure.”“This is really a sad day for New York.”Pataki was slamming the state’s education policy-making board and Education Department for phasing out the exams by 2028 that are currently required to earn a high school diploma.There are no alternative graduation requirements in place, at least yet.The Regents exams that students have needed to pass in math, English, science and Global Studies to obtain a diploma became a graduation requirement during Pataki’s tenure and under then-state Education Commissioner Richard Mills.The Board of Regents earlier this month voted to make them optional as they work to develop alternative graduation requirements.Pataki also referenced the Brooklyn elementary school that controversial woke New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones highlighted in a recent piece she wrote.

Hannah-Jones admitted in the report that she knowingly “sacrificed” her daughter by sending her to the badly failing school, where her child did not thrive, to make a point to try to get other black parents to keep their kids at the neighborhood school.“This is a disgrace,” Pataki said.“The next time Democrats talk about income inequality, ask them how their subservience to the teachers union is helping low income minority kids get a step up in lif...