Just how Many Students Opted out New York’s 2015 Testing?

The stats are in, and it shows just how many students opted out of the common-core testing this past school year.

Controversy over testing methods, and pushback from the teachers union led to a tumultuous testing season in the Hudson Valley. The standardized tests were given to students in grades 3-8 and were aimed at evaluating their progress.

Some parents instructed their kids to opt-out of the tests because they believed that their children were being tested too much and worried that their learning skills could be unfairly labeled at an early age if they did poorly on the exams. The New York State Union of Teachers also came out against the tests, urging parents to have their children opt out. Some suspected that this was mostly due to a new mandate that based 20 percent of a teachers evaluation on the results of the exams.

According to the Times Herald Record,  200,000 students out of the 1.1 million who were scheduled to take the tests decided to opt out. The stats were presented by New York's new education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia

The good news is that scores did improve. While only 31 percent of students passed in 2013, over 38 percent passed in 2015. Math scores improved seven percent over the same time period.

While the results are encouraging, Elia says the dramatic increase in the amount of students who didn't take the exam successfully skewed the results. Only 55,000 students opted out in 2014, with even less in 2013.

The state says that they still may place sanctions on the school districts where a high amount of students opted-out. The sanctions could include the withholding of federal funds.