[kg_veteran]

Testing for competency is certainly not a bad thing, Dude, but I seriously doubt you were teaching your kids how to pass the test. Rather, I'm quite certain you were just teaching them subject material and then giving them the test. That's not the case in public schools.

Even before NCLB, "teaching to the test" existed, but since federal funding became tied to testing, it's become incredibly more prevalent.

"Teaching to the test" dumbs down the entire system, and it takes the focus away from learning subject material and puts the focus on test-taking strategy and only learning enough information to pass the questions that will be on the test.