The Daily Freeman reports that test results improved on this year’s Common Core standardized tests, but 20 percent of New York students chose not to take the tests. State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia did not want to compare the year-to-year results since changes were made to the tests last year. In 2016, 37.9 percent of third- through eighth-grade students scored proficient in English language arts, up 6.6 percentage points from 2015, while math scores increased by just one percentage point to 39.1 percent. Read the full story in The Daily Freeman.