Those anonymous individuals who develop high-stakes tests by which educational quality is measured exercise great influence in defining educational quality. In this article, the author examines the impact of high-stakes testing on the welfare of the children and the quality of social studies instruction. He presents the benefits and drawbacks of standardized testing, and argues that high-stakes tests are detrimental to improvement and accountability because they provide unsound and inaccurate data that distort educational priorities and give the public misleading information about how well schools are performing. The consequence is the waste of valuable resources by focusing attention in the wrong directions. Thus, opposing the use of standardized tests does not mean that one is also opposed to standards and accountability; rather, one believes that there are other methods for promoting high standards and accountability.