[Dole]

There are very similar problems over here. Since the Tories introduced the 'national curriculum' there are are far more tests for much younger kids than there ever were. These basically mean that Teachers are bogged down with insane amounts of bureaucratic crap that goes with this testing, they are far more restricted on what they can teach, less able kids can be stigmatised and labelled as failures at a VERY young age, and the results of all these tests are published in league tables, so the schools that perform at the bottom are far more concerned with their on paper record for these tests than in the quality or scope of the teaching.

Its part of a larger trend that everything can only be expressed in statistical form to make it valid- our health service REALLY suffers because of these league tables.