Your child knows the material. You have seen it at the kitchen table, during homework, on the good days when the right question comes at the right moment. What the test never captured was that. For decades, New York’s graduation system handed students a timed standardized test on a fixed day and treated the score as the verdict on what they knew. That system is ending. New York’s Board of Regents announced this month that the state will shift to a competency-based diploma, the first in the nation, where portfolios, projects, and real-world demonstrations replace pass-or-fail standardized tests as the route to graduation. The mainstream coverage is framing this as workforce modernization. The story it is missing: for kids whose brains process differently, this is the structural change they have needed for decades.
New York is replacing its pass-or-fail Regents graduation system with a competency-based diploma. Here is what parents of kids who learn differently need to know about why this structural shift matters, and where the real risk still lives.
Common questions
Does New York’s diploma change help my child who has an IEP or 504?
My child is in middle school now. Will this affect their graduation?
If my child struggles with reading or math, will portfolios make graduation easier or just different?
Will colleges accept a competency-based diploma from New York?
NY just ended test-only graduation. For kids whose brains process differently, this is the structural fix nobody in mainstream education coverage is naming.
What New York announced and when it takes effect
At a June 16 Board of Regents meeting, New York’s State Education Department unveiled the next phase of NY Inspires, describing it as ‘the most significant transformation of the state’s graduation system in generations.’ The current framework, which awards three diploma tiers based on Regents exam performance, will be replaced with a single diploma earned through demonstrated competency. Students will prove mastery through assessments, projects, presentations, or portfolios. They will also count internships, capstone projects, community service, and career-technical programs toward graduation.
‘The big idea is that New York is moving away from an outdated factory-style education model toward a model system built for how students actually learn,’ said Jeffrey Matteson, the department’s senior deputy commissioner for education policy. Full implementation is set for the 2029/2030 school year. Students who entered high school in 2024, 2025, or 2026 will still sit Regents exams, but passing them is no longer required to graduate.
‘What will matter moving forward is the quality and substance of the evidence that a student produces, not the particular route that produced it or how long it took,’ said Shannon Logan, director of strategic priorities and coordination in the department’s Office of Cultural Education.
The big idea is that New York is moving away from an outdated factory-style education model toward a model system built for how students actually learn.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
The frame the mainstream coverage is missing entirely
New York’s Regents system was built on a model that treats timed, standardized performance as the measure of what a student knows. For a child whose brain processes information differently, that model has always measured processing speed under pressure, not knowledge. The International Dyslexia Association’s 2025 definition update made explicit what learning-differences research has documented for years: dyslexia and related conditions involve processing speed and working memory as co-occurring challenges, not outliers or excuses.
A student who reads slowly but accurately, who understands a concept deeply but needs a different format to demonstrate it, has never been well-served by a system where the clock and the bubble sheet were the final word. The three-diploma structure made that visible in the worst possible way: a student with an IEP who needed accommodations qualified for a ‘local diploma,’ a credential that carries a different signal than the standard Regents diploma regardless of what that student actually mastered. That distinction is ending.
Deputy Commissioner Angelique Johnson-Dingle said at the meeting that current transcripts do not ‘adequately reflect what a student knows and what they are able to do.’ That sentence applies to every student. It describes the experience of learning-different kids with particular precision.
Key takeaways
- Portfolios replace pass-or-fail tests: New York is shifting to a competency-based diploma where students demonstrate mastery through projects, presentations, or portfolios, with full implementation in 2029.
- The three-diploma tier system ends: The current structure, which gave students with certain IEP accommodations a different 'local diploma,' is being replaced with a single diploma tied to demonstrated competency, not testing tier.
- The K-8 instruction gap still applies: EdTrust-New York flagged that the new system works only for students who were taught to read and compute proficiently in K-8. A new diploma pathway does not repair a skill gap left by inadequate early instruction.
What it means for your child now, and where the real risk sits
If your child is in middle school, this change arrives as they enter high school. If they are already in high school, the pass-or-fail Regents requirement is already gone for the Class of 2025 onward. Portfolios and projects give a kid who knows the material a route to show it without being penalized for how fast they process a standardized exam. A student who writes slowly due to dysgraphia, who struggles with timed math tests due to dyscalculia, or who loses focus under standardized testing conditions due to ADHD now has other routes to demonstrate the same knowledge.
The honest warning comes from Jeff Smink, deputy director at EdTrust-New York, who noted at the meeting that students can only access opportunities like internships and college courses ‘if they are proficient in reading and math.’ Portfolio pathways work for kids who have been taught. For a child who left third grade still unable to read fluently because their school used a guessing-based reading program instead of systematic instruction, a new diploma format does not fix the gap the instruction left behind. The more urgent question for those families is the quality of instruction their child receives right now.
What to ask your child’s school: Is the district designing pilot programs for next year? What will the ‘learner profile’ transcript document, and how does it represent a processing-different student’s strengths? If your child has an IEP or 504, how will those accommodations carry into competency-based assessments?
What will matter moving forward is the quality and substance of the evidence that a student produces, not the particular route that produced it or how long it took.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Your child’s ability to learn is not the question. The factory-style model that treated a timed bubble sheet as the final verdict on their future was the problem all along, and New York is now naming it. The same research that backs New York’s shift, that knowledge lives in how a child demonstrates mastery rather than how fast they process a fixed exam, is what the Brain Bloom multi-system approach is built on. If you want to see exactly which processing skills your child is building and where the gaps are, the Learning Success All Access program starts with a personalized assessment and gives you the roadmap either way.
See what All Access gives your child
See MTSS for schools
Is your child struggling in school?
Get your free personalized learning roadmap
You describe what you see at home. We turn it into a plan you start this week.
- Answer 5 short questionnaires about what you already notice, 30–45 minutes at your own kitchen table
- Your child sits no test and gets no score: nothing to schedule, nothing for them to dread
- You do the answering, the AI does the writing, and a person reviews it before it reaches you
- Access all 40+ courses instantly: reading, math, focus, processing and more, with new ones added regularly
Why we use AI, plainly: it writes from a knowledge base our team maintains and audits. We work through it line by line and pull anything the evidence stops supporting. The roadmap you get on Tuesday reflects what we corrected on Monday, and a human still reads it before you do.
Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
Your answers stay yours. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not hand identifiable assessment data to outside AI companies to train their models.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
References
- New York State Education Department — Board of Regents Announce Plan to Move Toward First-in-the-Nation Competency-Based Diploma (June 2026)
- The 74 / NY Focus — New York High Schoolers Might Be Getting a New Diploma (June 26, 2026)
- International Dyslexia Association — IDA 2025 Definition of Dyslexia
