The release of state testing results for third- through eighth-graders has long been as much a back-to-school rite of passage as shopping for clothes and supplies.

Every August, anyone interested could download the test results to see how children in their school district had performed the previous spring. The last year of normal testing was 2018-19, and district scores were published Aug. 22 with schools receiving student-level data Aug. 27. Schools then gave those student-level scores to families.

This year has been different.

Schools received the test scores in mid-August, but they still haven’t been released to the general public. According to the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a June state Education Department memo states the public release will come sometime in the fall.

We all know student learning decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tests were canceled for the 2019-20 academic year and roughly 20% of students took them in 2020-21. That means these 2021-22 results are a key data point for those who pay attention to the educational performance of our schools. The public deserves to know how much damage was done to the state’s students during the pandemic — and they deserve to know that information before the November elections.

New York’s governor holds a lot of sway when it comes to education funding and who sits on the state Board of Regents. Voters deserve to know what type of results record levels of education spending are actually paying for before they cast a vote for the status quo or for a change in education policy.