According to The New York Post’s analysis of New York State Education Department data, “Nearly 200,000 students — or one out of five — refused to sit for the state’s standardized reading and math exams for grades 3-8 administered in the spring” of 2023. That number surprised me. There’s certainly some precedent for it, but I thought that the educational havoc wreaked by the Covid pandemic might have dampened the popularity of the opt-out movement — the tide of parents who’ve chosen to exempt their kids from state standardized testing. Apparently not. I also thought that damning revelations in recent years about “balanced literacy” — a method focused on “developing a love of books and ensuring students understand the meaning of stories,” as the Times education reporter Sarah Mervosh described it — which was shown to be less effective than phonics (“systematic, sound-it-out instruction”), would make parents realize that standardized testing is an important part of developing the best curriculum possible.

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Persons: There’s, who’ve, Sarah Mervosh Organizations: The, New York State Education Department Locations: The New York