TUCSON, AZ — Today, in a hard-fought victory for district students and educators, the Tucson Education Association (TEA) announced that it has finalized an agreement with the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) to significantly reduce unnecessary standardized testing and restore critical instruction time in TUSD classrooms.
“For a long time, educators and students have shared the concern over too much testing. During the 2024-2025 school year, our union collected more than 1,200 signatures from educators and families who wanted to see change in our community, and we worked closely with the district to create a TEA-TUSD Task Force that was responsible for coming up with real solutions. The Governing Board’s approval of our MOU means that educators will have more time to do what we do best — teach our students and help them engage with deep and meaningful learning instead of endless tests,” said Jim Byrne, President of the Tucson Education Association.
TEA is the union representing educators in Tucson’s largest public school district. During the past school year, TEA collected more than 1,200 petition signatures from educators, administrators, and district families who oppose excessive testing in TUSD. The success of the petition campaign led to the establishment of a joint TEA-TUSD Task Force that evaluated strategies to reduce unnecessary standardized testing, increase valuable instructional time, and improve student engagement. On July 22, the TUSD Governing Board approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between TEA and TUSD to codify the testing reductions recommended by the Task Force.
Under the MOU, which covers testing that is managed at the district level but not required by the state, district standardized testing will decrease by 50% for students in grades 2-8, with students now taking three iReady diagnostic tests per year, compared to the three benchmark tests and the three iReady diagnostic tests that were previously required. District testing will also decrease by more than 30% for students in grades 9-11, with students now taking two ACT mimic tests per year compared to the three that were previously required. TUSD leadership has also committed to continued collaboration with TEA to ensure that assessment practices serve the best interests of district students. The changes to state testing requirements will go into effect beginning in the 2025-2026 school year.
“We applaud Tucson's realization that excessive and duplicative testing detracts from student engagement and learning. Many districts around the country are realizing that more testing does not produce better education or greater student achievement. Tucson can be looked to as a model for consensus-based action to reduce excessive testing. The point of any assessment is to give useful feedback to educators and students in ways that enhance learning. Ideally these are constructed in connection with curriculum and instruction. Perhaps the paring down of external commercial tests will enable schools in Tucson to employ more authentic performance based assessments that foster critical thinking, deeper understanding, and allow students to really show and take pride in what they know and can do," said Harry Feder, Executive Director of FairTest, a national organization committed to fighting the overuse and misuse of standardized testing.