Dear Colleagues,

Statewide standardized testing has played a central role in education policy for decades, as policymakers have sought to get a clearer picture of how schools are performing and spur them to improve. Yet state tests, required by federal law, have grown increasingly divisive. They’ve been attacked from many directions for many reasons.

At the heart of the controversy is the fact that stakeholders want the tests to serve two different, equally legitimate, and largely incompatible roles. They want the tests to provide policymakers information on student achievement that’s comparable across schools and school districts to hold schools accountable for results. And they want them to give educators and families detailed information to improve instruction and track individual student progress.

The competing priorities have caused high-quality tests developed at a substantial cost to be attacked by critics and abandoned by states, spawned new testing initiatives that have struggled to address both roles of testing simultaneously, and paralyzed the national discussion on ways to teach students to higher levels in a post-pandemic era when that work is critical.

The conflict is playing into the hands of opponents of all state testing, who would strip the testing provisions from federal law, putting the future of state testing at risk—and with it, testing’s vital contributions to instructional improvement, school quality, research, and educational equity.

In a new analysis, None of the Above: A New Vision for State Standardized Testing, FutureEd Senior Fellow Lynn Olson and I propose a way out of the testing crisis. The key, in our view, is decoupling state testing from school accountability systems required by the federal government—allowing constructive changes to state tests while ensuring that policymakers continue to have a clear window into how students are performing and allowing emerging testing innovations to focus on strengthening instruction.

We know, given the intensity of the testing debate, that our blueprint for the future of state testing will draw criticism. That’s fine. Our goal is to spur a much-needed conversation about how best to resolve what has become a years-long stalemate on a critical issue.