Oregon Live · Julia Silverman · September 9, 2026
Researchers say it's become progressively more difficult to gauge how much Oregon students are learning in the 11 years since former Gov. Kate Brown signed a law making it easier for parents to opt their children out of state reading and math tests.
Those concerns were the focus of a rare hearing on the topic Tuesday before the Interim House Education Committee, a potential signal that lawmakers may be mulling whether to revisit the state's opt-out policy.
Andrew Hinkle, co-director for the National Center on Educational Outcomes at the University of Minnesota, told lawmakers that Oregon is something of an outlier on the opt-out question, particularly given the lengths to which it goes to inform parents about the chance to exempt their children from testing.
The state requires that parents of children in grades 3 to 8 and 11 receive a letter each spring explaining the stakes of the upcoming state standardized tests and outlining their right to excuse their children from the testing. The letter notes that information gleaned from testing can help school districts and the state figure out where to direct more resources to help struggling students and give parents key information about their own child's academic progress.
Federal law requires that at least 95% of students sit for state tests each year, Hinkle said, but it is up to states to enforce that and decide whether there will be consequences for districts that don't meet that threshold. In Oregon, only about 89% of students participated in state English tests and 88% took the state's math assessment in 2025, the most recent year from which data is available. Participation rates are particularly low at high schools.
In real numbers, that means about 31,600 students got parent permission to sit out the reading and writing test in 2025 and more than 34,000 skipped the math tests that year.
Because of that high opt-out rate and the subsequent lack of statistically significant data yielded by the test results, Oregon has been excluded annually from an important national scorecard that is tracking student academic recovery post-pandemic. That in turn makes it harder to see which of the state's districts might be excelling and pinpoint what other districts can learn from their example, Stanford professor Sean Reardon told The Oregonian/OregonLive last spring.
"Failing to test the full breadth of students can mask real progress that schools are making -- or could conceal test score declines that should be addressed if the non-participating students tend to be students with lower than average skills," Reardon said at the time.
Still, Oregon is not alone in struggling to reach the 95% threshold, Hinkle told lawmakers. Oregon is one of 11 states that expressly allows the testing opt-outs, while 13 states do not permit it under any circumstances. The remainder of the states either do not address the topic, have no determinative policy on opting out or leave it up to school districts to decide, Hinkle said.
There is no apparent politically-driven rhyme or reason to which states allow students to opt out of state tests and which do not, Hinkle said. Some conservative states, including North Dakota and West Virginia, allow students to opt out, while some more liberal ones, including Rhode Island and New Mexico, expressly prohibit it.
And at least four states that also allow opt-outs still manage to hit the 95% threshold, Hinkle said, suggesting that Oregon's high non-participation rates may be due in part to the well-publicized ability to opt out.
Even in states that don't allow opt-outs, some districts still struggle with the 95% threshold, Hinkle said. Many states impose consequences on districts that do not meet that level of student test participation, including requiring them to do an improvement plan, or have increasing levels of state oversight, he said.
It's unclear whether Oregon lawmakers will take up the issue in the upcoming session that begins in January. Tuesday's packed agenda left little time for lawmakers to comment on Hinkle's presentation.
Any attempt to change course could be politically difficult. The powerful Oregon Education Association, the driving force behind the original 2015 opt-out law, has historically expressed skepticism about testing and the time it eats up from the school day.
Some lawmakers have also expressed similar concerns. Senate Education Chair Lew Frederick, a Portland Democrat who has long been a staunch opponent of standardized testing, told The Oregonian/OregonLive last spring that he remains unconvinced of their utility.
"What are the tests effectively showing?" Frederick asked then. "How much time and money are the tests, preparation for the tests and the intimidation associated with tests costing students, teachers and districts?"