So why don’t we chase test scores? 

I think the question is really why should we chase them? The entire foundation of basing school quality on test scores is a lie.

1. Test scores were never designed to rank schools and weigh in on school quality. 
   
2. Test scores are influenced by too many outside factors and primarily driven by parent education and family income.
   
3. Test scores predict other test scores and do not predict how a student will be successful later in life. Shouldn’t time be spent on developing something that would predict this? 
   
4. It is possible to “beat the test” and falsely raise test scores. We used to do this by teaching to the test and what it did was shrink the curriculum. Rather than teaching critical thinking and problem solving skills, we taught students to solve test-like problems–there’s a big difference there.   
   
5. Chasing test scores does not inspire and empower students or teachers. It lowers school climate and promotes practicing problems to chase a number and leads to score inflation. 

As a school district we’ve made a conscious choice to stop chasing scores and seeking to beat the test. District rankings do not provide us with any tangible reward. You don’t “win” anything for a ranking and quite honestly we believe that chasing test scores creates  demoralized educators and students that don’t feel a sense of purpose for what they’re doing.