Delegates to the U.S. National Education Association’s annual meeting in July voted to launch a national campaign to put the focus of assessments and accountability back on student learning and end the "test, blame, and punish" system that has dominated public education in the last decade. The campaign will among other things seek to end the abuse and overuse of high-stakes standardized tests and reduce the amount of student and instructional time consumed by them.

The anti-toxic testing measure also calls for governmental oversight of the powerful testing industry with the creation of a “testing ombudsman” by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Consumer Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission.

U.S. Secretary of Education Duncan said that testing issues were “sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools”.