Even supporters of standardised testing agree that the emphasis on preparing students for tests can go too far. This may be the most memorable instruction your child hears from a teacher this year. For New York City fourth graders, who last heard that admonition in February in the final seconds of the state's reading and writing exam, failure could mean another year of fourth grade. Forty-nine states have established curriculum standards spelling out what educators in each state have determined students should know. An increasing number of states, cities and districts are tying these efforts to high-stakes tests that hold teachers, principals and superintendents accountable for raising student scores.
Poor performance can lead to dismissals and school closings.
The more important the outcome, the stronger the incentive to do whatever is necessary to ensure that students perform adequately. In Austin, Tex., school officials have been charged with invalidating 1998 test results of low-scoring students to improve their district's overall results. This link between testing and teaching also lies behind last summer's battle in Kansas over the place of evolution in the science curriculum. The teaching of evolution could not legally be banned from the classroom, so creationists did the next best thing, successfully lobbying for evolution to be removed as a topic from the state's standardized tests. They too understand that what is not tested is much less likely to be taught.