High Stakes Testing

I found myself feeling frustrated several times during our last class discussion about high stakes testing, federal aid, and No Child Left Behind. There is a lot of controversy surrounding aid in the education system and the consquences of high stakes testing. Personally, I am a terrible test taker, so I have very negative feelings towards testing. I was aware of negative conquences high stakes tests can have on students, but I did not realize it effected teachers so much. I went to a private school, so our teachers did not necessarily have to test us to comply with state educational standards. I did not realize that teachers pay could be altered according to the test scores of their classroom (merit based pay). If a teacher's pay is going to increase based on test scores, it makes sense that they would alter their teaching specifically to the test. A lot is lost when a teacher does this. I think that learning does not happen completely until application in a realisitc setting occurs, then the knowledge will be encoded and more likely remembered. When students learn information only for a test,the information is lost quickly and no actual learning has even taken place. However, without such academic standards, would teachers have the same incentive for their students to do well? I would like to think the answer to this question is yes, but its hard to say for sure, because I know of many examples in which teachers without an incentive do not put as much drive and passion into their job. However, I think the negatives of high stakes testing outway the positives, and that testing should not have such a weight in the educational system.