“Why Do Good Policy Makers Use Bad Indicators?”*
Test scores are the coin of the educational realm in the U.S.. In No Child Left Behind, they are used to reward and punish districts, schools, and teachers for how well or poorly students score on state tests. In pursuit of federal dollars, The Race To The Top competition has shoved state after state into legislating that teacher evaluations include student test scores as part of judging teacher effectiveness.
Numbers glued to high stakes consequences, however, corrupt performance. Since the mid-1970s, social scientists have documented the untoward results of attaching high stakes to quantitative indicators not only for education but also across numerous institutions. They have pointed out that those who implement policies using