Jonathan Pelto writes about the bizarre decision by the Obama administration and Congress to mandate annual testing (a practice not found in any high-performing nation), then to allocate $9 million to “reduce the burden” that it created.
Jon writes:
Chalk one more up for the greed and deceptiveness of the education testing industry and their corporate education reform allies in and of government.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s not bizarre at all if you understand that the goal is to get as much government money as possible into private hands. Spend a fortune creating a problem, then shovel a lot of money at private contractors to “fix” the problem. Win-win.
WELL SAID. Create the problem…and then pretend to be “fixing” it.
Precisely.
It’s a REALLY low priority if they’re allocating 9 million to it. It’s public relations- they can now say people were “heard”.