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Parents who opted their children out of state exams in recent years became the focal point of major education debates in the country about the proper roles of testing, the federal government, and achievement gaps. Now, under the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have a chance to rethink how they handle testing opt-outs.

So how are states responding in their ESSA plans they submitted to the federal government? In short, it鈥檚 all over the place, an Education Week review of the ESSA plans shows.

Keep this in mind: ESSA requires that students who opt out of those mandatory state tests must be marked as not proficient on those tests. Those not-proficient scores will in turn, obviously, impact accountability indicators. So while some states highlight this as their approach to handling testing opt-outs, it鈥檚 really no more than what the law requires.

But there鈥檚 also this touchy issue: Whether states will lower a school鈥檚 final rating directly because it missed the law鈥檚 threshold of testing 95 percent of eligible students. (Remember, not all states are assigning final, summative scores to schools separate from ESSA鈥檚 mandatory categories.)

Here are the states where there would be a direct impact on final school scores due to missing that 95 percent threshold:

1. Alaska
2. Connecticut
3. Iowa
4. Massachusetts
5. Mississippi
6. New Mexico
7. Ohio
8. Oklahoma
9. Rhode Island
10. Vermont
11. Wyoming

Even within that group, there鈥檚 some variation. Alabama, for example, wouldn鈥檛 lower a school鈥檚 overall rating the first year that it missed the 95 percent threshold. New Mexico鈥檚 approach, meanwhile, is pretty direct: Any school missing the threshold would have its A-F letter grade knocked down by one letter.

A few states warn about increasing penalties of some kind if a school misses the 95 percent participation rate for several years, although it鈥檚 not always clear what those penalties would be.

Many states would require schools with lower-than-required participation rates due to opt-out to be 鈥渇lagged鈥� in some way and to come up with a plan for addressing the issue.

Finally, let鈥檚 look at the opt-out plans in Colorado, New Jersey, and New York. Those are three states where opt-out has attracted a relatively notable following in recent years.

1. Colorado schools that miss the 95 percent participation threshold must create a plan to address low participation rates. They also have to distribute information to the public about the tests.
   
2. New Jersey schools missing the mark would have all students who opted out scored as nonproficient. Again, that鈥檚 what ESSA requires.
   
3. New York schools missing the mark would have to come up with a plan to address the situation. More specifically, schools in the bottom would not only have to come up with plans, but those plans would have to get approved by the state. In addition, the state鈥檚 鈥淣"-size (wonk speak for the minimum number of students at a school for that subgroup of students to be included in accountability measures) for test participation is 40, while for all other indicators the N-size is 30.

Remember that ESSA technically requires all eligible students to take state exams in English/language arts and math. But sanctions are supposed to kick in when the 95 percent threshold isn鈥檛 met by schools.

We鈥檒l update this post as the few states that haven鈥檛 yet submitted their ESSA plans do so. If you think we missed something about any state鈥檚 plan, let us know.