The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted 4-3 on Tuesday to allow 10 schools to waive standardized testing and test prep starting in the 2025-26 school year.
“LAUSD is committed to providing the highest level of education to our students,” said LAUSD Chancellor Jackie Goldberg. At a board meeting Tuesday morning The resolution states: If schools develop and pilot assessments that are “innovative, authentic, rigorous, and relevant,” the school would be “exempt from all standardized testing, except for state- and federally mandated assessments.”
Goldberg said he “hoped” the resolution would be passed before he left his position as chancellor, but that the move “would begin to change how we look at student evaluations.” He said he is “not opposed to evaluations.”
But the official, who has 18 years of education experience, said the government spends billions of dollars each year “constantly looking for ways to keep bumping up standardized test scores a few points here and there.”
She continued during the board meeting that “Corporate America” had decided that standardized tests “will determine everything that goes on in our schools.”
Goldberg added, “An entire industry started to emerge offering a huge amount of study materials: tests, practice tests, mock tests, regional tests, middle school grade tests, end of the year tests, tests on the way to school, tests you can take while you're in the bathroom, tests you can take anywhere.”
Additionally, Goldberg, who is not seeking reelection and plans to retire at the end of the year, said standardized tests, among other things, take away “the joy of education.”
“Because the goal in life was no longer the love of learning, the enjoyment of education, or the exchange of ideas, but whether or not we got good test scores in school.”
“For at least 20 years, I found it repulsive,” Goldberg said.
“We're always going to get everybody ready for testing, and I think we're doing a great disservice.”
Goldberg's colleagues criticized the move.
One board member who voted against the measure disagreed with Goldberg, citing “declining enrollment” and “limited resources.”
“We appreciate what you're trying to do,” board member Nick Melvoin said.
“One of the challenges … is there are some different tensions within the district right now … I don’t think you can manage what you can’t measure.”
“We're also entering a period of limited resources and declining enrollment, and we're trying to understand what works and have a common language about what works,” he added.
“Professors are not going to weaken the exam or not have exams,” said George McKenna, who voted against it. “You have to take an exam to work at the post office.”
McKenna added: “The gift of not assessing children is not a gift. It's also a political statement that we don't want teachers exposed.”
Standardized testing doesn't actually teach kids to be competitive because every kid in the country is taking the same test at the same time.”
Another board member, Rocio Rivas, read a letter from a fifth-grader who opposed standardized testing.
The resolution states that the district Supporting meaningful teaching and learning initiativesUp to 10 schools were able to demonstrate that teachers and administrators could implement the assessment methods at the local level.
School officials will be able to track students' academic progress without the burden of standardized test preparation.
The initiative will assign a “lead teacher” who will receive additional professional development from a community school coach and the University of California, Los Angeles’s Center for Community Schools.
According to the resolution, the 10 schools must integrate “culturally relevant curriculum, community and project-based learning, and civic engagement” into their programs.
The second-largest school district in the nation, LAUSD oversees more than 600,000 students in more than 1,000 schools.
The Los Angeles Times The move could conflict with standards under which LAUSD superintendents analyze test scores as data to evaluate schools.
LAUSD officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
