In traditional achievement testing, tasks were designed to extract diagnostic information that would enable teachers to improve instruction, but there was no expectation that the tasks used in instruction should resemble those in the test. The phrase “tests worth teaching to” had another connotation as well: tests would be designed such that preparing students for them—teaching to the test—would not lead to score inflation. But this was a logical sleight of hand. There is no reason to expect that a test that is “worth teaching to” in the sense of measuring higher-order skills and the like
...more
