Educating and socializing kids takes more than 180 days a year. It takes a village to raise a kid. Think of all the things you learned from your parents, your extended family, your sports coach, your neighbor, or the manager of the corner store you frequented. Did you ever have a lesson at school about tying your shoe laces? How did you learn that advertisements don't have tell the truth?
Teaching to the test is about pulling low achieving students up to standard, not so much about supporting high performing students. Even though a lot of difference between a good school district and bad school district comes down to out of classroom factors like socioeconomic class and parental involvement, the district gets praise or blame. The district can't fix food insecurity, absent parents, abuse, and anti-intellectual attitudes. But it can focus those 180 days on reading and math and specifically what's on the test.
My parents beat me when I disappointed them. It takes a village to turn their back on apparent and obvious child abuse too. This is probably why I find it difficult to put on what I perceive to be the standard issue hacker news rose colored glasses.
You've completely avoided the topic of money. Presumably we have to pay these teachers somehow. The way we've decided to do this is inimical to all the things you've otherwise described.
Teaching to the test is about pulling low achieving students up to standard, not so much about supporting high performing students. Even though a lot of difference between a good school district and bad school district comes down to out of classroom factors like socioeconomic class and parental involvement, the district gets praise or blame. The district can't fix food insecurity, absent parents, abuse, and anti-intellectual attitudes. But it can focus those 180 days on reading and math and specifically what's on the test.