PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s new high school graduation requirements have caused some headaches as schools and students adapt to a system that measures students in new ways, including senior projects and portfolios of student work.

For the first time, about 10,000 seniors had to complete the new assessments to receive their diplomas next month — a process that got mixed reviews from students, parents and educators.

But it turns out other states are watching closely what is unfolding here.

Yesterday, more than 100 educators and policymakers from across New England and the country convened at the Federal Reserve Building for a daylong symposium focused on Rhode Island’s new requirements. The event was hosted by the Coalition of Essential Schools, an education reform organization founded by nationally known educator Theodore R. Sizer when he was at Brown University.

Some states are considering the merits of adding such student exhibitions to their own graduation requirements, relying less on standardized tests that in some cases have done little to improve student performance or better prepare graduates for life after high school. In Massachusetts, for example, a study released last month found that thousands of high school graduates arrive at college unable to do the work required of them, despite having passed the state MCAS exam.

Rhode Island educators talked about their experiences with the new system. Students from Barrington, Central Falls and Coventry high schools and the Met School in Providence presented their senior projects, in-depth exploration of a topic selected by the student. Educators from Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York also discussed the graduation requirements in their states.

“I believe Rhode Island is the wave of the future,” said Ray Pechone, co-executive director of the School Redesign Network at Stanford University and former head of curriculum and teacher assessment for the Connecticut State Department of Education. “The state is really a pioneer.”

Pechone said that 27 states use portfolios or projects as part of their diploma system, but usually as an alternative to traditional measures such as test scores. Another 23 states use “high-stakes tests” to determine whether a student should graduate.

Rhode Island, in contrast, uses three measures: grades from four years of classes; results from standardized tests administered in October of junior year; and “performance-based assessments,” such as portfolios, senior project or end-of-course exams.

Several speakers credited the state’s longtime education commissioner, Peter McWalters, with resisting the trend toward high stakes testing and pushing through the more complex graduation requirements. McWalters announced this spring that he would be leaving next June after serving 17 years.

“The exhibition movement isn’t new,” McWalters told the audience in his introductory remarks. Elite private schools had a history of requiring seniors to recite Greek and Latin and prove their mastery of subjects prior to graduation, for example. Standardized testing is most valuable “as a dipstick, a barometer,” of how both students and schools are doing, but should not be used as the sole factor for graduating, McWalters said.

“Do these kids, when we say they are proficient, do they have a deep understanding? Does that understanding show up when they land in college or the work force? Because it all means nothing if they end up at the community college needing remedial courses. That has to be our final measure of how well this new system works — where do they land after high school?”

What makes Rhode Island stand out is that all three elements are considered essential and that students are expected to complete work in all three areas, Pechone said.

“Rhode Island is using good, New England, old-fashioned common sense in recognizing that four years of courses and grades and tests should count for something,” Pechone said.

jjordan@projo.com