Update: The letters notifying parents and students as to whether that student passed the graduation-required Algebra 1 end-of-course exam have begun to arrive in home mailboxes. The letter doesn’t ...

On this year’s New York Regents Algebra I exam, which was aligned with the Common Core curriculum, the percentage of students passing fell, even as the minimum passing grade was scheduled to increase.

In math, Algebra 1 is a make-or-break course. The class is the gateway to high school math, and struggling to complete it can close off those higher-level pathways—and even jeopardize students’ ...