<p>As a person who grew up in NY and taken Regents, I can respond to this issue. My kids are in Maryland, which does not have a lot of state-wide tests. </p>
<p>Yes, I believe that overall the NY kids have a more rigorous curriculum and tougher standards with state-wide tests than that found in other states. However, the operative word is “overall.”</p>
<p>In Maryland, some schools are very tough. My daughter was in an internal magnet program requring almost all honors and AP courses, not to mention graduating with 4 actual college classes. She even had a research paper that had to be presented and defended before several faculty members. She had a much tougher program that I believe I had in NY.</p>
<p>Also, as noted above, Regents are fairly easy tests. There are lots of review books for test preparation. They also somewhat follow each other in format and provide similar test questions. In fact, if regents were given here in Maryland with the same amount of test preparation books, my daughter’s average GPA would have been much higher.
There isn’t the same level of test preparation available to Maryland kids and to kids from other states.</p>
<p>Finally, although I am not a fan of the SAT, they are a great leveler. Everyone takes the same tests under roughly the same conditions.</p>