By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — After the Italian Regents Exam was threatened with extinction this year, Italian-American leaders are urging education officials to scrap the proposed elimination once and for all.
In December, the State Education Department's Board of Regents voted to cut costs in the face of looming budget deficits by eliminating Regents language exams including Comprehensive German, Hebrew and Latin. Italian, Spanish and French exams are still offered this year.
The Italian exam was originally on the chopping block, too, but it was retained for the 2010-2011 school year, State Education Department spokesman Jonathan Burman said.
While the exam will once again be offered in June, its fate for the coming year remains unknown — and members of the city’s Italian-American community are rallying to make sure it isn't cut.
An online petition to save the test has collected more than 4,000 signatures to date.
"It’s a slap to the ethnic populations," said James Lisa, president of the Italian American Political Action Committee, of the talk of eliminating the test.
He said that canceling the Regents exam would almost certainly lead schools to cancel Italian classes, depriving kids of the opportunity to learn the language.
Joseph Scelsa, President of the Coalition of Italian American Associations and a retired professor at City College, said the issue has hit a chord with many in the community worried about losing the language.
"People are really upset about it," he said.
He agreed that eliminating the exams would likely result in fewer students studying Italian in high school.
According to the State Education Department, eliminating all but the Spanish and French language exams would have saved about $1.2 million a year. The department's budget has shrunk by about 30 percent since 2008-2009, it has reported.
But Lisa said that if any additional language is eliminated, it should be French, because the Italian community is one of the city's largest and most prominent.
"I don’t know any French day parade taking place in New York City," he said, noting both the San Gennaro and Columbus Day celebrations of Italian pride.
Carlo Sclafani, a professor at Westchester Community College who alerted many to the board's talks, went even further, describing the attempt to cut the exam as "discriminatory" and arguing that every language should receive equal funding.
"This is not right. It’s not fair," he said, and vowed to keep on fighting.
The final listing of 2011-2012 exams is set to be published in February or March, Burman said.
