10 LAUSD Schools Get a Chance to Opt Out of Standardized Testing

This article was originally published in EdSource.

Ten Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) community schools will be given an opportunity to pilot new approaches to assessments in the 2025-26 academic year.

And once the schools adopt alternative assessments, they won’t have to participate in standardized tests, other than those mandated by state and federal governments, the district school board decided in a 4-3 vote on Tuesday.

The policy, which comes as part of the Supporting Meaningful Teaching and Learning in the LAUSD Community Schools Initiative , was authored by LAUSD school board President Jackie Goldberg and board members Rocio Rivas and Kelly Gonez.

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Goldberg said that over the past several decades, corporate entities have turned education’s focus away from cultivating a love for learning — and toward test taking, which she believes has become the “be-all and judge-all of schools.”

She emphasized that multiple choice, standardized assessments are not the only way to gauge students’ learning.

“I knew where my students were, what they could read, what they understood, what they didn’t — because that’s what you do when you teach,” Goldberg said, adding that class discussions and projects can also be used to observe progress. “You’re continuously assessing.”

Once the 10 community schools establish new “innovative, authentic, rigorous and relevant” methods of assessment, they will not be required to administer the district’s iReady diagnostic tests, which teachers have criticized for taking up large chunks of instructional time.

Rivas said students would be relieved of some of the anxiety and stress that comes from ongoing standardized testing. She read several messages she had received from students in the district during Tuesday’s meeting.

“If we already take five state tests … in the end of the year, why do we take the end of the year iReady?” one student wrote in a letter to Rivas. “They both are the same reason: to show you what we know.”

“I was really stressed out — worrying about all of these tests. I also gained a lot of anxiety since testing started, and I could not focus on my own life because I was so stressed.”

LAUSD board member George McKenna, however, opposed the measure, questioning how students are supposed to learn without being given tests to work toward. He added that the initiative has “promise” but that he did not trust the policy would be implemented properly.

Board members Tanya Ortiz Franklin and Nick Melvoin also voted against the resolution — which will require LAUSD to establish a Supporting Meaningful Teaching and Learning Initiative that community schools can apply to be part of.

Schools that are part of the initiative would have to select a community school “lead tacher” who is grant funded and would receive additional professional development from both Community School Coaches and UCLA Center for Community Schooling, among others.

The 10 schools in the cohort, according to the resolution, will also have to adapt their instructional programs to “integrate culturally relevant curriculum, community- and project-based learning, and civic engagement.”

“This is just one step,” Gonez said during Tuesday’s meeting. “But I really look forward to the way this resolution will be implemented — to see what innovative ideas that I know our teachers have and see how we may be able to pilot a more joyful education, a transformative education, which really brings the community schools model to full fruition.”