Keshia Flukey is reporting at Politico New York under the new federal education law, the consequences of high test-refusal rates will now be left up to the states. How this will impact opt-out rates this year is still unclear. An official said the state is still in the process of fully understanding the implications of the recently adopted Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the No Child Left Behind legislation, but one of the changes include giving the state the ability to determine how to handle school districts that do not meet the federal 95 percent participation rate on state standardized tests. That decision was formerly left to the U.S. Department of Education. Last spring, New York had one of the highest test-refusal rates in the country when approximately 240,000 students opted not to take the state, Common Core-aligned third- through eighth-grade math and English language arts exams. The federal education department has threatened to withhold Title I [one] funding from states with high opt-out rates. Under the new law, which largely takes effect in the next school year, the state would be responsible for deciding what consequences school districts not meeting minimum participation rates would face. A low participation rate does impact a school district's accountability standing, so they do face being placed on the failing schools list if high opt-out rates continue. Regent Judith Johnson said the state needs to make a decision on what it plans to do, and relay that decision to the school districts as soon as possible because districts already are preparing for the April state exams. Read the full story at Politico New York.