Gov. Shapiro plans to move the PSSAs online. Here’s some history of the controversial tests.

No more filling in the bubble to answer a multiple-choice question: By 2026, Pennsylvania’s standardized tests will be online, Gov. Shapiro announced Thursday.

As students across Pennsylvania prepare to take the Pennsylvania System of State Assessments (PSSAs) next week — many with pencil and paper — Shapiro said his administration would be helping all schools transfer to online-based tests.

Appearing at a school outside Pittsburgh, the Democratic governor said he understood “how annoying” the dayslong testing can be for students and teachers, and said the changes would shorten both the testing time and administrative labor.

Here’s what Shapiro said would change, and what Pennsylvania’s standardized testing involves:

The PSSAs, which started in 1992, are administered annually and test whether children are meeting grade level standards. Children in third through eighth grades take the PSSAs in English language arts and math, while fourth and eighth graders also take PSSAs in science.

Pennsylvania later introduced the Keystone Exams, which are end-of-course tests administered to high schoolers statewide meant to assess proficiency in Algebra 1, biology and literature. The state planned to require that students pass the tests to graduate by 2017, but instead moved to allow students to demonstrate proficiency through other measures.

The scores allow for comparisons between school districts and show year-over-year changes.

» READ MORE: New PSSA results show some scores are rebounding, but kids are still behind

The tests have been long criticized by both parents and teachers, who say they cause stress for students and waste time that could be spent learning. Opponents also say schools are driven to teach to the test, and that the results aren’t a fair assessment of how well schools are doing.

The tests are also costly. A bill introduced by Republican lawmakers last year that proposed to end PSSA testing said the annual cost of administering the assessments was $48 million.

Visiting the Northgate School District Thursday, Shapiro said he understood “how these tests put just a huge burden on teachers.”

Although he said that “I’d love to go a step further and get rid of these tests entirely,” the federal government requires that states administer standardized assessments as a condition of federal aid, Shapiro noted; ending them would mean losing $600 million.

To streamline the testing process, Shapiro said all PSSA and Keystone testing will move online by 2026 — a shift that 32% of schools have already made, he said.

Putting the tests online will be accompanied by changes that make them faster, Shapiro said: Rather than traditional multiple-choice questions and “dreaded” essay prompts, he said, the revised tests will include more interactive options, such as dragging-and-dropping and sorting the correct answer.

Those changes are anticipated to save about 30 minutes per test, or 90 to 120 minutes per year, Shapiro said. Meanwhile, school staff won’t have the administrative burden of boxing and mailing paper tests.

“Less testing means more learning,” Shapiro said.

The governor’s office said the transition to online testing would save the state $6.5 million annually, and would also allow schools to get results faster — better enabling them to evaluate the findings and respond.

“We’re empowering the teachers to be more efficient in regards to how we gain information back through these assessments, so that we can get to effectiveness for these young people,” said Pennsylvania’s secretary of education, Khalid Mumin. He said the education department would also be introducing new benchmark tests that would allow schools to measure whether their students are on track before taking end-of-year assessments.