The Mathematics Assessment Collaborative: Performance Testing to Improve Instruction:

American schools are awash in standardized testing. Students are spending more and more time on state-mandated, high-stakes tests linked to state standards. There are variations among the states in terms of how often they test students, what subjects they test, whether their exams are normor criterion-referenced, and whether multiple-choice questions are supplemented by other question types. But the passage of federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation makes it clear that, in the next few years, high-stakes standardized testing will only increase nationwide.