The problem is that many of the new tests are written in a way that make them unteachable-to without teaching what the tests are supposed to test.
My favorite science question just had a simple question. But to answer it you had to know
how to read a piece of equipment
the equation involved for the "law" involved
what each of the symbols meant in real terms
how to find proportions
how to reason about that "law" in terms of proportions
And even then the answer choices were pictures. You had to pick the coil (in this case) that contained the right values to answer the question. In other words, that calculator was useless.
If you looked at the required standards you'd have found each of those things listed. The old test would have probably just given numbers and asked kids to plug-and-chug to find the answer. Or asked, "Faraday's law involves ..." with a series of choices. You can get to the answer given the equation that was provided--use the test to pass the test. Or you can say, "Heck, I can't solve for x. I'll just plug each of the answers in the equation until I get a number I recognize" and let the calculator do the thinking for you.
The first year this kind of test was given the passing score for at least one subject was 38%. 13 points above random chance. Over 40% of the kids failed--they didn't know 13% more than random guessing would have gotten them. The next year the passing score was higher, but teachers had a clue and started teaching better. Still, the fail rate didn't fall.
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