[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="New York's Regents' Exams are under fire."][/caption]Jimmy Vielkind in The Albany Times-Union has a report on how the State Education Department is considering whether to cut some of its Regents examinations or start charging school districts for the privilege of having students take them because everyone's worried about asking grumpy taxpayers to cover $15 million for what have long been a benchmark for New York students. According to the story it costs $5.93 per student to administer the test, which people are screaming about as another "unfunded mandate." Federal law requires testing in English language arts and mathematics, which would leave exams in foreign languages, U.S. history and government, global history and geography, earth science, chemistry, physics and geometry on the chopping block.


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Gov. Andrew Cuomo is saying his called-for education cuts are based on records showing the state slipped in terms of results, indicating that money spent isn't achieving proper results. Educators are replying that the figures the governor is using are skewed to reflect all 29-year-olds, and not those actually in public schools today. We're just wondering what happens to our culture, state-wide and nationally, when it gets trimmed to bare bones.