Comment by mikekchar

It's not the only place in the world where the work (educating students) is jeopardised by the evaluation of that work (tests). Tests in schools are even worse, though, because they conflate 2 completely separate issues: the success of the efforts of the education system and the success of the efforts of the student.

On the other hand, I will say that standardised testing is good at one thing: predicting which students will do well at standardised tests in further schooling. This may sound useless, but if you consider that the education system is what it is, you can help students either get better at the system or choose a different path after their compulsory term is over (like going to a trade school, running a shop, etc, etc).

In my brief stint at teaching English, I always tried to separate the activities of learning English and passing tests in order to progress on to further education. If you just want to learn English, there is no need for evaluation. You don't need to fit it into X years of school. You don't have to hit some arbitrary school board imposed targets. You just have to learn English. IMHO a teacher should always be there to helps students learn (and especially help them learn how to learn by themselves).

However, the other role exists and is arguably more important in the students' school years. You need to help the students align themselves with the careers that they are eventually going to take. That this involves considerable hoop-jumping is very unfortunate, but it is what it is. Students shouldn't confuse being educated with having a high mark on a test.