Look, testing this year is likely to be a disaster. The option to wait until the fall is an especially good one. But anyone who doubts there’s value in any testing happening should look to everyone who says that schools will be “overfunded” with the latest round of ESSER/ARP money.

They will be “overfunded” only in the sense that they have an actual increase in money to spend. A generation of students whose schooling has been interrupted and/or disrupted are going to need extra supports to get back on track, and that is going to take extra resources. Without the achievement data that shows this, the (largely right wing) commentariat are out in force to say that schools have too much money that they will surely waste.

Forget about extra expenses related to COVID-19 that have already occurred. There are new needed supports that require resources to make sure a generation of students get the education they deserve. Frankly, we weren’t doing that great on that measure before the pandemic.