I’ve always taught to the test. Of course, the test has to adequately cover the material. People who complain about teaching to the test are people who want to spend the class day teaching “the world according to me.” I had plenty of teachers in college that didn’t give a d*mn about the curriculum, only their agenda. I’ll take teach to the test every time.
When I say teaching to the test, I’m talking about focusing on a standardized test. When scores on those tests are the only important thing. Never mind grades. If teachers are teaching (and I’m sure most are doing just that), there is no need to “teach to the test.” When I was teaching school, I taught what was in the curriculum, not my agenda. But, yes, because school boards and administration put so much focus on these test scores, we had to drop everything and focus on “teaching to the test.”