Thanks for responding. I appreciate you taking the time to explain what you mean. I didn't mean to imply you criticized a specific test, I'm just trying to understand what critics of testing actually mean by "teaching to the test".

I suppose our probable point of disagreement is fundamentally that I don't think classes will ever impart a "general understanding". I consider the purpose of a class to be imparting a specific skillset, and most of the skillsets taught in school are quite amenable to testing.

You are also correct that my arguments in favor of testing implicitly assume teacher quality matters in a significant enough way to measure - if it doesn't, measuring them is pointless. (Then again, so is trying to use teacher quality as a lever to improve outcomes.)