While many of their classmates at Holbrook Road School in...

While many of their classmates at Holbrook Road School in Centereach were busy taking their state tests on April 12, these students who chose to opt out spent the day in separate classrooms reading books of their choice. Credit: Newsday / John Paraskevas

I am not in favor of standardized testing to measure a child’s knowledge.

The April 17 news story “92G spurn ELA exam on Island, survey says” reports that 49.1 percent of Long Island public school children did not take the annual state English Language Arts testing this month.

I was disappointed to find a slew of statistics, but nothing that explained the numbers.

Why are children and their families opting out? What does this mean for educators? How can we better measure academic progress and strengthen our children’s relationships with the education system, rather than steer them away from it? And what do we as a society need to take away from these numbers?

The opinions of those who are or aren’t benefiting from our education system should be included.

Irene Koutsidis, Queens

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