Obama: End Overtesting of Students

The first comprehensive study of the U.S.’s largest public school districts has found that most schools require too many standardized tests of students, with the average number of mandated standardized tests a student takes between kindergarten and 12th grade exploding in the last decade to 112, many of which are redundant. Most countries that outperform the U.S. on international exams test students only three times in the same amount of time, the Washington Post notes. The study—which did not count quizzes or tests created by classroom teachers and disregarded the time spent preparing for standardized tests—blames disjointed mandates from Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, local governments, and testing companies. The U.S. Department of Education issued a statement ahead of the study’s release, acknowledging its own part in the needless proliferation of redundant tests and pledging to amend some of its policies. In a video released on Saturday, President Obama declared he wants to "fix" the over-testing of students.