Merryl Tisch

Those who call for 'opting out' really want New York to 'opt out' of information that can help parents and teachers understand how well students are doing, we cannot go back to ignoring the needs of our children. It's time to stop making noise to protect the adults and start speaking up for the students.

Without an objective measure of their progress, it was easy to deny special education students and English-language learners the extra resources they need, opting out could cost us much of the progress we have made and damage the work that still needs to be done for our most vulnerable students.