Teachers unions and some lawmakers have pushed Massachusetts to scrap a standardized testing requirement in a pandemic-impacted school year, but the state and some advocacy groups still want public schools to administer tests this year. Preparing for and administering the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam, opponents fear, would take away learning time that is especially scarce due to the pandemic. Moreover, some question the ability of standardized testing to measure student performance, since test results are often shown to correlate strongly with race and family income, among other social factors. MCAS supporters, however, claim the difficult year makes the test particularly important for measuring whether students have fallen behind. Information gathered from testing, they say, would help parents see how their children are doing and allow the state to identify where additional resources might be needed.