us history regents

us history regents

Analyzing the Evolution of the United States History Regents Exam: A Comprehensive Study

1. Introduction to the United States History Regents Exam

The New York State Education Department administers the Regents Exams for high school students based on the recommendations of individual course work and related tests in order to fulfill core curriculum requirements. The students who successfully complete the course of study under the direction of a certificated teacher then take a corresponding Regents Exam which verifies students’ proficiency in the course of study. If the student scores >65 on the high school Regents examination, the student passes Regents examination requirements. The student must take and pass the exams in the five core subjects, including English Language Arts, Math, Global History and Geography, and United States History and Government in order to be awarded a Regents diploma.

The New York State education system provides Regents Exams and awards Regents diplomas to high school students who meet particular specifications. These exams are on the core curricula subjects, including tests in social studies, English, mathematics, and sciences. The undergraduate history major at Mount Saint Mary College is required to complete this exam. According to the New York State Education Department, the purpose of administering these exams and awarding Regents diplomas is to make certain that high school students graduate with core subject knowledge. In order to track the content knowledge of graduating seniors at Mount Saint Mary College, we have collected data on the thematic essay question in the United States History Regents Exam from the 2003 August to the 2013 January exams.

2. Historical Overview of the Exam Content

As early as 1865, the United States began regulating public secondary schools and subsidizing education, which received the greatest push in the early 20th century. In 1900, 69% of children aged 14-17 attended public high schools, where half of all college-bound students were enrolled. Public high school education served as the college-bound requirement of the university system, which had developed a four-year college preparatory curriculum. Throughout the nineteenth century, college-bound secondary students took state tests to gain admission, which determined seat distribution, teacher qualifications, and high school graduation requirements. Although the college track and course content had been defined, no such consensus existed regarding history as part of the college preparatory curriculum.

In part, the development of the Regents exam in U.S. History has been an attempt to use testing to promote teacher preparation, curriculum change, and instruction. To a considerable extent, the exam anticipated changing conceptions of what the history curriculum should be and helped bring them to reality. As early as the 1920s, the Regents included current events on the exam, but only after World War II did the Regents make a determined effort to test the new school curriculum. The first attempt occurred in 1946, as the test overlapped with the syllabus of the Armed Services Exam, requested by the U.S. Army to prepare returning veterans, most of whom had had little or no opportunity during their high school years to study U.S. history, for college. The 1961 history reform movement in the schools, and IPAR, led to an extensive revision of the history curriculum, which was then tested by a greatly expanded history exam in 1964.

3. Impact of the Exam on Education and Curriculum

Given this context, it is reasonable to ask: What have been some of the broad, persistent influences exerted by the U.S. History Regents Exam on the schools where it is given? Consider, for instance, the basic mandates of the state: Districts at a sufficient level of need are required to offer students, during the three years of high school, global, U.S., and economics and government courses, and for these students to pass almost for graduation, one subject area course again. There is a stated presumption that teachers will be professionally developed. The resulting financial costs to school districts and demands placed on their administrators are substantial.

There is very little disagreement among educators that educational practice is profoundly influenced by assessments. In the context of high-stakes testing, this influence has broad, powerful dimensions that span every facet of schooling: student access and success, teacher pedagogies, curricular content and emphasis, school and district budgets, staff morale and behavior, and communities’ views of schooling. It would be difficult to overstate the magnitude of assessments’ roles in the current “reforms” of American education described by Cuban. In a nation that has long prided itself on being a leader in creativity, those seeking to understand U.S. public education have been struck not only by the deficit model articulated but also by the fact that teaching to the test is often engaged in an environment that is top-down, distrustful, and autocratically managed by fear.

4. Recent Changes and Adaptations in the Exam Format

As for the kind of the open-ended questions, from 1986 until 1989, the only open-ended questions were the Thematic Essays. Over the years, the number and the type of the open-ended question varied. In the years 1986, 1987, and 1988, the number of the individual Document-Based Questions varied over the years. For 1989, 1990, and 1996, the questions appeared. From 1990 until 1996, the exam included one DBQ and one Thematic Essay. In 1992, 1995, 2010, and in 2012, the exam included two DBQs. In 2011 and in 2013, a full field test of the common core-aligned exam was presented. There was one DBQ. The content of the Thematic Essays even changed, but between 1986 and 1990, there always was one Thematic Essay. For 1990, 1993, and 1996, two Thematic Essays appeared. For the year 1991, and from 1994 until 1995, three Thematic Essays were provided. Finally, from 1997 until 2009 and from 2011 until 2013, the exam again included one Thematic Essay.

During the history of the Regents exam, there have been several changes in the exam format. In 1991, 1988, and 1986, the number of the short multiple-choice questions varied over the years. In 1985, and from 1997 until 2010, each year there were 70 short multiple-choice questions. In 1990 and from 1986 until 1989, this number decreased to 60 questions. From 1992 until 1996, there were 80 questions, and in 2011, the number of questions again changed; it was increased to 85 questions. In 2012 and in 2013, a full field test of the common core-aligned exam was presented. The number of short multiple-choice questions was 50. The next year, 2014, with a full rollout of the common core-aligned exam, again there were 50 questions.

5. Future Prospects and Recommendations for Enhancing the Exam

The results also show that the optional exam raised the performance of lower-performing students—especially those historically underrepresented in AP classes, such as Black or African American and Hispanic students. While these findings are preliminary, the thought is that the standard United States History Regents Exam can be made stronger. Changes can draw on the experiences of the optional exam, as well as on similar large-scale student assessments in the United States and across the world. The aim is to present the mandatory United States History Regents Exam with opportunities for skill-building and meaningful assessment of current events. Given declining student knowledge of the U.S. government and participation in elections, these are goals that we need to set for an assessment of United States history.

The optional exam uses mostly primary sources and a diverse group of questioning techniques that ask for a range of historical thinking skills. Teachers report that the optional exam has pushed them to teach their courses with these limitations in mind, which has enriched their instruction. This outcome is also reflected in the results, where taking the optional exam leads to higher Advanced Placement U.S. History scores.

Over the past two years, the New York State Education Department has tested an optional United States History Regents Exam. The test asks questions about all of United States history in one three-hour exam. Results show that less than five percent of the two-year test takers took this optional exam, and the average score was about 10 to 15 percent higher than the United States History Regents Exams.

Future Prospects and Recommendations for Enhancing the Exam