Will Your School Drop I-Ready in 2026? Answers to Every Big Question
School boards are responding to this pushback with sweeping policy reversals. The most telling example arrived in South Florida. Leaders in Broward County Public Schools, the nation’s sixth-largest school district, voted to slash district-mandated testing by more than half. District administrators announced the change under a simple mandate: they listened to educators who felt trapped in a loop of endless progress monitoring.
Broward County is not an outlier. Across California, Ohio, and New York, superintendents are actively pruning their testing calendars. During the pandemic recovery era, districts poured millions of dollars in federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds into software subscriptions. School systems used the money to track learning loss in real time. But as those federal relief dollars evaporate, school finance officers face steep budgetary cliffs.
When administrators must choose between keeping reading specialists on payroll or renewing six-figure software licenses, the software loses. Districts are canceling enterprise packages, reverting to lightweight screening tools, and returning instructional hours to classroom teachers.