The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) partnered with the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to examine the pathways used by students to attain a Regents diploma at the outset of a new policy expanding those pathways in June 2015. Under the new 4+1 pathways policy, students could replace one of the two required social studies Regents exams with another approved assessment in one of several subjects to earn a NYSED-recognized Regents diploma. The analysis, based in part on assessment data that are not publicly available, shows that 2.3 percent of Regents earners in the 2013 cohort, those who were in grade 9 in the fall of 2013, earned their Regents diploma by replacing one of the two social studies Regents exams with another approved assessment. These data represent a snapshot of the initial stage of implementing the expanded pathways to graduation policy during which districts did not yet have complete procedures for data reporting fully in place. The results are estimates of the use of different pathways to a Regents' diploma, and therefore the results may understate the number of students using such pathways during this time period.
