With high stakes testing impeding over every decision a teacher makes, they are often forced to teach to the tests rather than to their students. Education involves the heart as well as the mind. Teaching to the test entails instruction devoid of passion and meaning as students are taught information from a stripped-down curriculum.

Typically, these tests aim to make sure that students have memorized a series of procedures, rather than making sure that the students fully understand what they are doing; in other words, these tests are a measure of a students arbitrary knowledge rather than their capacity for logical thinking.