Remember the Education Reform juggernaut right before the Great Awokening? Various billionaires announced that to end racial inequality, All We Had to Do Is to Fix the Schools and that they’d just been to a conference in Aspen where they had a brainstorm about exactly how to do it, usually involving teaching public school students to think more like billionaires. Or something.

But that didn’t much work, although some Back to Basics efforts like KIPP seemed to do some good for some poor kids of good character. But then came the Great Awokening and it became racist to attribute racial gaps to anything other than Systemic Racism and to suggest any remedies other than jobs and cash handouts for blacks.

From the New York Times news section:

Regents Exams May Become Optional for High School Graduation in New York

The tests had once been seen as a hallmark of academic rigor, but high-stakes graduation tests have fallen out of favor nationally.

By Troy Closson
Nov. 13, 2023
Updated 9:17 a.m. ET

… Half the country required exit exams a decade ago. Today, New York is an outlier, joined by only a handful of other states, including Florida and Massachusetts.

… The proposed changes would have once have been hard to imagine in New York, a steadfast champion of statewide testing and rigorous standards. A decade ago, the state embraced the Common Core, for example, a controversial set of English and math standards meant to raise academic levels.

But in recent years, it became unclear whether the state was actually boosting achievement and helping more students graduate prepared for college. Some research shows the Regents requirement in particular may have done little to improve outcomes. Instead, it may have led more low-income and Black students to drop out.

Now, Ms. Rosa said the state wants to tackle graduation “through the lens of students” who have faced barriers in “access and opportunities.” …

Education leaders and advocates worry that standardized test scores can be influenced by a student’s income, cultural differences or other obstacles. …

Ms. Rosa said New York’s planned overhaul is “really, truly not lowering standards”

I.e., the overhaul really, truly is lowering standards.

and would simply better address each student’s needs. …

“Everybody’s not going to need algebra. Everybody’s not going to need historical dates,” Mr. McCutchen said. “But they will need to know how to problem solve and ask questions.”

In other words, everybody needs a high g factor of IQ.

Lotsa luck with that.

In general, the demise of education reform looks like an early phase of the coming Competency Crisis as America starts to run out of whites.