Corrected: A previous version of this article misstated the consequences for low-performing schools related to state and federally required testing.
Students in one Arizona district will take fewer standardized tests this school year, the result of an educator-led push to devote less time to testing.
The Tucson Education Association, backed by the school board and several parents, reached an agreement with the Tucson Unified school system in May to reduce the number of district-mandated standardized assessments students take annually starting in the 2025-26 academic year.
The “memorandum of understanding” between the TEA, which represents Tucson’s teachers, and the 41,000-student district reduced by half the number of district-mandated standardized assessments students in grades 2-8 will take during the academic year.
Students in those grades previously took three i-Ready diagnostic math and reading tests per year in addition to three benchmark tests. Now, students will take the i-Ready tests only. The i-Ready tests are administered by computer, and they’re considered adaptive—adjusting the difficulty of questions it delivers based on students’ performance.
High school students will be required to take two practice ACT tests; previously, they took three. Students will continue to take state-mandated assessments as required.
The district’s elementary school educators anticipate gaining nine additional days of instruction with the new agreement.
“We’ve already heard from elementary teachers, even just in the first couple of weeks of school, and they’re just elated,” said Jim Byrne, the president of the Tucson Education Association. “It’s really a sense of relief.”
In recent years, educators nationwide have expressed growing opposition to required standardized tests.
Just 25 percent of educators agreed that state-mandated tests provide useful information for the teachers in their school, according to a 2023 EdWeek Research Center survey of teachers, principals, and district leaders. Nearly half of educators who responded to the survey reported feeling more pressure than before the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure students perform well on state tests.
Gauging just how much time teachers spend in a given school year on standardized tests—prepping students, administering the exams, and reviewing and debriefing afterward—isn’t easy, as each state and district have their own requirements. What is clear is that standardized testing surged following the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, which required annual state testing in reading and math in grades 3-8 as well as one year in high school. A 2015 report by the Center for American Progress that analyzed standardized testing in 14 districts in seven states found that students take up to 20 standardized assessments annually.
Recently, stakeholders in some districts have pushed back.
Various stakeholders drive grassroots efforts to reduce assessments
Tucson Unified’s effort to reduce the number of districtwide assessments began with a petition signed by approximately 1,200 educators and families from the district. Along with the petition, the TEA shared a position statement with district officials explaining the group’s rationale for wanting to administer fewer standardized assessments.
“We understand that deliberate, data-focused assessment is beneficial; however, the sheer volume of testing fundamentally contradicts the core values stated in our own district’s mission statement: to assure that each pre-K through 12th grade student receives an engaging, rigorous and comprehensive education,” the statement said.
Tucson Unified isn’t the first school system to reduce the number of district-required standardized assessments.
Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second largest, in 2024 initiated a pilot allowing up to 10 of its full-service community schools to opt out of standardized tests not required by state and federal laws, as long as they agreed to design alternative ways of assessing student progress. The LAUSD Community Schools Steering Committee—made up of district-level administrators, school principals, a high school student, and others—drove the measure, which was approved in a 4-3 school board vote.
Like Tucson Unified’s memorandum of understanding, the LAUSD Community Schools pilot retains all assessments required by state and federal laws.
Not everyone agrees with reducing standardized assessments
Reducing the number of standardized tests that students take isn’t popular with everyone.
Prior to the LAUSD decision to pilot a reduction in districtwide assessments, board member Nick Melvoin expressed his opposition to the plan at a board meeting, implying that data from test results allow educators to recognize whether classroom instruction is effective.
“I do think you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” he said.
Arizona schools chief Tom Horne was more pointed in his dissatisfaction with Tucson’s decision.
“When a school district cuts back on formative tests because students are tense, I think that’s what’s wrong with a lot of public schools today. I’m a crusader for excellence against mediocrity and the easier they make things, the worse it is,” he wrote in an email to Education Week. “A diploma needs to mean something because students need to learn things in order to succeed in this economy as human beings.”
Educators, parents tend to lead efforts to tamp down testing
While not everyone agrees with efforts to reduce standardized testing, parents and teachers often share similar sentiments on the issue.
In 2015, New York State United Teachers urged parents to opt their children out of exams aligned with the Common Core State Standards, and thousands backed the union’s appeal.
James Kirylo, a professor at the University of South Carolina’s college of education, opted his own children out of standardized tests when they attended public schools. He said the graduate students he teaches, most of whom are employed in the K-12 school system, voice near unanimous agreement on what they see as an overemphasis of standardized testing.
“They’re very frustrated because of that kind of environment, which puts pressure on them, especially if they link test scores to promotions and funding,” said Kirylo. He said he has engaged his graduate students in conversations about how educators can respectfully push back against what they perceive as excessive testing that they believe to be detrimental and harmful to students and teachers.
Financial incentives deter educators from pushing too hard for less testing
TEA President Byrne described what he called a “steep learning curve” as he and fellow union members discovered what could be at stake if they pushed for too many, or the wrong, assessments to be nixed from K-12 classrooms.
For instance, Byrne said that an estimated quarter of the district’s schools—those in which the majority of students come from low-income and immigrant families—receive funding from federal 21st Century Community Learning Center grants, which are contingent on the continued administration of specific standardized assessments. “We don’t want to get in the way of funding going to these schools,” he said.
It’s a common sticking point, noted Kirylo. “Part of the problem is that the testing requirements are linked to federal dollars,” he said. “No state is going to give those up.”
In the overall debate about testing, underperforming schools seem to have the most to lose, and the least to gain, from state and federally required testing. They may be at risk of sanctions if they don’t submit standardized-test scores or if those scores don’t climb. But many educators feel that students who attend these schools have the most to lose by spending too much time on testing and not enough time receiving effective classroom instruction.
“The question is not whether or not there should be assessments,” Kirylo said. “The question is, how are we doing it? What kind of impact are we having, and what kind of climate is it creating?”
