Student Testing: An International Context is a new study that finds more than 80 countries or jurisdictions are participating in this year’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of comparable, highly developed nations, including Canada. The OECD reports that about three-quarters of 15-year-old students in those participating countries attend schools in which mandatory standardized tests are used at least once a year.

Testing of Canadian K-12 Students: Regional Variability and Room for Improvement finds that governments across Canada could improve provincewide student testing programs by offering regular uniform testing at multiple grade levels and making school and district performance results available to the public, which would incentivize educational improvements.