About high-stakes standardized tests

Doherty (2002) asserts that probably there is no other development in education during the past decade that has generated more controversy than the spread of high-stakes testing to every state in the nation. There are divided opinions and teachers, parents, state boards, politicians, etc have their own  say in the matter. Why? because high-stakes testing is used to make important decisions like promotion and graduation, teacher incentives, funds and business decisions, etc.
Gareys and Grant (2008) list four negative (unintended) consequences of high-stakes standardized tests:

• lack of validity leads to incomplete and inaccurate inferences about student learning
• the curriculum is narrowed
• lack of test reliability leads to undependable inferences about student learning
• some people resort to cheating

Similarly, Popham (2005) states that both national standardized-tests and state-developed standard-based test have flaws and when they are used the product is:

• curricular reductionism, because teachers eliminate the content that is not going to be tested;
• excessive drilling, which takes all the fun of learning away, and
• modeled dishonesty, when teacher resort to unethical practices to raise students scores.

My question is, if high-stakes standardized tests have so many problems why do we insist on using them?

Gareis, C. & Grant, L. (2008). Teacher-made assessment. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education

Popham, J. (2005). Standardized testing fails the exam. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/f-for-assessment