The need to make test performance the first priority forced many teachers to push topics and activities that did not appear on the test to the end of the school year, after testing is finished. Researchers such as Wayne Au, an assistant education professor at University of Washington, Bothell, analyzed 49 qualitative studies to see how high-stakes testing affected curriculum. A synthesis of 49 studies found a strong relationship between high-stakes testing and changes in curriculum. At the elementary level time spent on physical education, the arts, and hands on science have been almost eliminated. Compare the amount of recess time allotted in Asian countries to recess time in America. It is five to one according to Diane Ravitch, a former Assistant Secretary of Education. The results of a national survey of teachers by researchers at Boston College documented that over a hundred hours of instruction time is spent on test-taking strategies and taking practice tests in American schools. At the secondary level, according to California Educator, struggling students are assigned double and triple periods of math and English. These students are assigned their electives without choice. The result of this is not higher test scores but increased dropout rates and lower achievement expectations for working-class students and student of color (Au). The outcome of these curriculum changes in both elementary and secondary public education is to "rob students of intellectually engaging activities that encourage the development of higher order thinking skills" (Mora). The American public education system's learning in one dimensional learning resulted in poor expectations, poor performance, boredom, and a dumbing down of educational standards unfit for the multidimensional society in which it exists. .
"Teaching to the test" altered the way in which teachers teach resulting in lower standards.