To the Administration of the New York State Department of Education,

We, the students of Thomas A. Edison CTE High School located in Jamaica, New York, are writing to showcase our concern about the decision to grade the upcoming New York State Mock Regents as two assessment grades. We believe this is truly unfair to students. Mock exams are meant to be practice, and a huge portion of the material on the exam has not yet been taught to us in our classes. Because of this, the test does not accurately reflect our understanding or effort.

Mock Regents exams are meant to help students prepare for the real Regents by showing what we need to improve on. If the practice exam significantly affects our grades, this truly creates unnecessary stress, anxiety and punishes students for the content that we have not yet learned. This can lower students grades and negatively impact our academic records, even though the purpose of the exam is simply preparation. This also affects teachers by putting them in a tight space to cram review and coursework at the same time. 

We respectfully ask the administration to reconsider grading the Mock Regents as assessment grades. Instead, we believe that allowing the exam to remain a practice test or using it as a tool to help teachers and students understand what areas need to be more focus before the official Regents exam.

Our goal is not to avoid accountability, but to ensure that our grades are fairly represent the knowledge and skills we have been taught. We are speaking on behalf of our school. However, there are rumors that other schools in our area are following the same protocols. We hope the administration will take our concerns into consideration and make a decision that supports student learning and fairness.

Kind regards,
The Students of Thomas A. Edison CTE High School