TA Practice on not taking a side to soon

The Bush Administration saw that students outside the US had test scores in math and science that surpassed US student’s scores. In an effort to make US students catch up in these subjects, the No Child Left Behind act was passed. This act called for increased accountability on teachers and schools, to help their students perform well on national standardized scantron tests. Due to monetary incentives for students to do well, extra time in class has been allocated and dedicated to these subjects that are an important part of a student’s education.
If teacher and administrator accountability in three core subjects math, science, and English increases teacher emphasis of these important subjects, then how could the NLCB ever be bad? That question brings up some of the unfortunate consequences of deriving accountability from a single, standardized, scantron test. This results in teachers who are just “teaching to the test”, this unfortunate practice destroys the balance of students education. If your accountability as an elementary to secondary education teacher was only in the subjects of math, English, and science, and these are the subjects that are “important”. There is no incentive to spend any time studying, dance, music, art, culture, public speaking, or a myriad of other important subjects, because “it will not be on the test.” Are these subjects not included on the tests because they are already too long? Or could it be that these other subjects are not important enough? The real reason that the arts are excluded from the test is because these subjects are not scantron testable. If it is not on the test, why spend precious time teaching it? Goes the prevailing mentality.