I was at a school last year where administrators, seeing the writing on the wall, decided to work for supposed academic achievement in the form of test preparation. Because of this, the teachers, who would normally be engaged in teaching a rich and varied curriculum of important information, instead taught students how to answer multiple choice questions and short answers so as to score the most points. To me, this was a waste of the academic potential of most of the students. Those with special needs were viewed as detriments to the school's scoring, and their low scores to be were lamented as unfortunate. Some students cannot take tests well, but may be quite skilled in those areas tested.
Some students excel in non-testable areas such as art, music, physical education and creativity.
These skills and achievements did not register in the school report cards. It should instead be a wake up call to those who move constantly and put their children in three or more schools in a year to understand the harm they are doing to their children's education. We as a society own those schools. We also must take responsibility for our own parts in creating the problems and coming up with the solutions. We also must find a better way to rate our schools so as to be a supportive measure for change, not a punitive label.