Dive Brief:

• The New York Times' editorial board on Saturday published an op-ed explaining why it believes Congress should not shy away from yearly standardized testing in its reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
• The article cites a decreasing achievement gap between black and white students and increasing national graduation rate (81% in the 2012-13 school year) as evidence of success for the Bush-era No Child Left Behind mandate of annual testing for third-through-eighth graders and a single high school test.
• What the board doesn't stand behind, however, is how schools can be labeled by their test scores — a system it says doesn't properly differentiate failing schools from good schools that miss achievement goals for students in subgroups like special education.

Dive Insight:

The editorial details some of the current proposals it deems most harmful, such as doing away with tests completely, allowing states to create their own tests so parents can no longer make national comparisons, and allowing Title I dollars to follow students so that the most impoverished and needy schools wouldn't necessarily get the extra funds.

Ultimately, the paper's board is saying tests are needed to hold schools accountable, but a better system for understanding what those scores mean and how they should be used is also a necessity. Separating testing from consequences instead of using scores as an accountability tool is one suggestion.

Earlier this month, the Republican-led House education committee sent a new, revised version of No Child Left Behind to the full chamber, which is why a slew of commentary and responses to testing are currently popping up everywhere. The bill is expected to be voted on by the House by the end of this month.