Teachers change their curriculum to prepare students for state and district assessments. I have observed many classes where students are practicing multiple-choice skills. It is no secret that what gets tested is invariably what gets taught. They stand alone, inflating their importance. Since there are no other forms of assessment that, in combinations with standardized tests, can provide a more robust image of a student's capabilities, we have come to rely on one particular type of assessment as the measure of student achievement.
Standardized tests are the only game in town.
In my profession, evaluation, we don't rely on just one method to assay effectiveness, we employ multiple methods. Without this absolute measure, we have no anchors against which to measure performance. Indeed, our study demonstrates this point nicely. Rochester's portfolios expanded the inequities between boys and girls, but reduced the gaps between ethnic groups. Gender and ethnic differences in test performance are probably due less to bias in the items of these tests than to biases inherent in the type of assessment.