If the test is below the level of education students were receiving before the test, it can not possibly increase the level of knowledge. In fact, the schools s

If the test is below the level of education students were receiving before the test, it can not possibly increase the level of knowledge. In fact, the schools spend an enormous amount of time not only administering the tests, but also preparing specifically for the test, when they should be educating the children. The California tests have expanded from something required every 3 or 4 years (I think I took them twice, but I opted out in high school) to something required every year starting in second grade. They also expanded in terms of the length of the tests. California does have specific programs for children from homes in which English is not spoken or is a second language. I spent 10 years in Virginia and sent my daughter to public school for ~2 years there. During that time, I noticed a trend in the way that state used the standardized testing and recommendations of "No child left behind". They closed schools that either did not meet the average on the tests (umm... what's an average again?) or could not increase their scores year after year. After a few years of this, two themes started recurring: - close an under-performing school, bus the kids further to other schools which are now more crowded and trying to improve the performance of the students that were not doing well enough to keep their previous school open - good schools started having trouble increasing their scores in subsequent years When it was an under-performing school that closed, very few people other than the parents of children at those schools (and maybe the surrounding schools) had a problem with it. When the best schools in the state (at least according to the test scores) started to fail the requirements (how do you improve test scores every year?), it still took a while for people to realize that the law (whether accidentally or otherwise) was going to close the doors of every public school in the state.