Eliminating high-stakes standardized tests as a primary tool for student assessment, school evaluation, and teacher performance metrics.
The Test-Optional City: Ending Standardized Testings Tyranny
Zhoran Mamdani declares that the regime of high-stakes standardized testingfrom state exams to the SHSAThas corrupted NYCs education system, narrowing curriculum, increasing student anxiety, and perpetuating racial and socioeconomic inequities. His policy makes NYC a Test-Optional city. He would eliminate the use of standardized test scores for middle and high school admissions, including the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), replacing it with a holistic admissions process considering grades, portfolios, and teacher recommendations. He would also end the use of test scores to evaluate teachers or grade schools, decoupling funding and reputation from these flawed metrics.
Instead, the city would invest in authentic, performance-based assessments: portfolios of student work, presentations, and projects that demonstrate critical thinking and skill application. The policy includes a moratorium on all non-federally mandated standardized tests and a commission to design a new, equitable accountability system focused on resources, climate, and opportunity. Tests measure a students skill at taking a test, not their intelligence, creativity, or potential, Mamdani argues. They have become tools of segregation and stress. We will reclaim education from the testing industrial complex and refocus on deep, meaningful learning that serves every child.
