NEW YORK — Rep. Jamaal Bowman, vice chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, released the following statement Tuesday in response to the Biden administration’s announcement that the U.S. Department of Education will not provide a national waiver for standardized testing in schools this year, contradicting Biden’s commitment during his campaign to end the use of standardized testing:

“Prioritizing testing in the middle of the pandemic is a big mistake. It is also a grave misuse of instructional time and resources.

“It’s a mistake that reflects a broader problem in American education: we have an obsession with arbitrary testing metrics above all else, even in the middle of a pandemic that’s dislodged every facet of American life. We’ve forgotten that testing is one useful tool, and should not be the goal of education in and of itself.

“The pandemic created the world’s largest education crisis. All students were impacted, but we know which students took the hardest hit. Testing isn’t revealing anything new; instead, it wastes time.

“We must empower educators to provide the best learning environment possible for students. This is not the time to waste time. Let’s dive into action to fix the problems we already know exist.“

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