Yes but...

In reading ch. 13 I related well to the scenario about education and a visit to the Dr.'s office. When we go to a the office we become fixated on the results, sometimes thinking if we watch what we eat and exercie a few weeks before the check-up, we will see good results. Which in fact is far from the truth. A healthy lifestyle will need to consistantely occur to have the overall healthy effects we want. Just like education, state mandated tests are only concerned with the results. They don't care about the process through with the knowledge is achieved. The effective and engaging form of teaching that results in the greatest amount of learning get frequetely overlooked because it might not provide the best practice for standardized tests.
The part about comparing the curriculum and the textbook I found interesting. Many teachers either teach to the textbook, or teach to the curriculum. Seldomly do both overlap. As it says, the textbook is a reference. It summarizes knowledge. Standardize testing reminds me of teaching to the textbook. Rote memorization in a particular order. Little room for personal syntehsize and formulation of one's answers. As a young, inexperienced teacher, I found myself using the textbook as curriculum, instead of a resource. Once I started to use outside resources more and less textbook, I found my classes to be more invigorating for myself,but more importantly, my students.