Long Island students see sharp drop in top English Regents scores — but still outperform state average

Long Island students are outperforming the average test takers throughout the state in math and English — while New York City public school kids are struggling to stay afloat, according to new data. 

Over 85% of Nassau and Suffolk County’s 37,000 combined students passed the English regents last school year — 10% higher than the state’s average — while nearly 70% made it through the new algebra regents, smoking the state’s benchmark of 56%, new data from the state Education Department detailed. 

Meanwhile, New York City’s over 121,000 public school students are struggling to catch up, with 48% of them passing the algebra regents and just 68% clearing the English regents, as a majority of kids in both subjects scraped by Level 3 scores, the most basic proficiency, and backslid by several percentage points compared to the year prior, the data read. 

Long Island students, however, largely passed the exams at identical rates to the prior school year — but subsequently saw a 10% drop off in those reaching the highest level of achievement year-over-year on the English regents, identical to NYC’s 8% fall from the year prior, according to the state’s figures. 

“It definitely is a big drop from the highest level,” Bob Vecchio, Executive Director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, told The Post.

The share of Long Island students earning a Level 5 score on the English regents — the state’s highest distinction — fell to just over 43% in the 2024–25 school year, down from 53% the year prior while NYC saw a drop from 30% to 22%, according to the data.

The number of Long Island school districts where at least 90% of students tested proficient also fell, dropping from 61 to 51 of the 99 districts that reported results, most of which were high-needs districts, the data detailed.

For example, 99% of all Cold Spring Harbor students passed the English regents, meanwhile a little under 60% of students in Wyandanch passed the same exam.

In New York City, which is home to over 1,800 public schools, a similar pattern was present where districts with more resources yielded better academic results from their students, according to the data. 

Aside from high-need schools requiring more funding and resources for their students to succeed, Vecchio said the drops in top-level proficiency follow a similar trend nationwide.

He believes the trend can be attributed to a multitude of reasons — such as the lingering developmental impacts on kids from the COVID-era, new state graduation and testing standards, and an overall shift in priorities for students. 

As the state’s regents exams are becoming optional in 2027, there has been less focus on preparation for these tests and more emphasis from teachers on other areas of education, Vecchio explained. 

“It is a very transformative time for students,” Vecchio said.

“Those in ninth grade right now, when they’re seniors, the regents exams will be optional — so a lot of high school students are no longer finding it as important to prepare as much for these tests as previous generations have,” Vecchio said, adding that the more important measurement of a student’s success is whether they graduate or not. 

But Vecchio said looking at the full picture — not just the highest-performing students — shows growth across the entire system, even in high-need districts. 

Despite the fall off of top performing high school students, Long Island children in grades three through eight made a 7.5% jump in English proficiency from the year before, nearly identical to New York City Students, according to the state’s data — a rise that Vecchio said proves the shift in focus among older students.

The Post did not compare Algebra I scores year over year because the state rolled out a new version of the exam in June 2024, making the results incompatible with prior years.