Standardised testing is overwhelming US public schools, study finds

The number of standardised tests US public school students take has exploded in the past decade, with most schools requiring too many tests of dubious value, according to the first comprehensive survey of the nation's largest districts.

A typical student takes 112 mandated standardised tests between pre-kindergarten classes and 12th grade, a new Council of the Great City Schools study found. By contrast, most countries that outperform the United States on international exams test students three times during their school careers.

In a video posted to Facebook by the White House last month, President Barack Obama pledged to take steps to reduce testing overload.

In "moderation, smart, strategic tests can help us measure our kids' progress in school, and it can help them learn," Obama said. "But I also hear from parents who, rightly, worry about too much testing, and from teachers who feel so much pressure to teach to a test that it takes the joy out of teaching and learning, both for them and for the students. I want to fix that."

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, where some 40,000 parents have signed a Facebook campaign against the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) for Primary Three pupils fearing undue pressure on children to improve results, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng Hak-kim rejected calls to cancel the tests.

In the US, the heaviest testing load falls on eighth-graders (usually aged 13 to 14), who spend an average of 25.3 hours during the school year taking standardised tests, uniform exams required of all students in a particular grade or course of study. Testing affects even the youngest students, with the average pre-kindergarten class giving 4.1 standardised tests, the report found.