How do you know this? Even in principle, how could you know this?
To me, it sounds like "I was such a good government contractor before they started auditing me and making sure I actually delivered what was promised."
Could you kindly provide some specific examples? It would be especially helpful for the discussion here if you could provide some citations to scholarly publications on other ways to evaluate teachers.
Also, around 10th grade, every single teacher in the entire school rewrote their syllabus. From there on, the ones with appropriate degrees in math and science - you know, the ones that actually knew what they were doing - complained bitterly about how hard it was to teach both the stuff that mattered and the stuff that was on the test.
Where?
Again, how do you know objectives were being met? Please clearly state your evaluation procedure.
...complained bitterly about how hard it was to teach both the stuff that mattered and the stuff that was on the test.
I've made similar complaints - Calc syllabi suck. Too many stupid algebra tricks, too little conceptual reasoning. This is a problem with the syllabus, not the test.
All the test does is reveals when you stop doing your job and teach whatever you feel like, rather than what you are being paid to teach.
The controversy about teaching children to read using either 'whole words' or 'phonics' (and sub-forms of phonics) is a nice example of some teachers not working to an evidence base and causing harm to their students.
And then someone does a double-blind controlled trial and it turns out that treatment is useless.
But from what I hear, they have gone completely overboard with the standardized tests so that it takes up all of the time.
I don't see anything wrong with having a few simple standard tests to cover some important things. I think it is actually important to have some kind of holistic measurement and analysis and guidelines.
But clearly there are too many tests, too comprehensive, and the attempt to mandate actions based on the tests is repressive and even destructive rather than helpful.
Teachers think they know what's right, but without good quality research (large samples and preferably some blinding) they cannot know what methods are more effective.