Every spring, education-related newspaper and magazine stories raise the alarm that schools are "teaching to the test." Scores of articles and editorials paint a disheartening picture of frustrated teachers forced to abandon good instructional practices for a relentless stream of worksheets based on boring, repetitive test-preparation materials. Although the phrase--and the concern--are hardly new, many observers blame the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act for escalating teaching to the test from a problem into an epidemic. The law "virtually transformed the concept of education," according to a recent editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, "turning teaching and learning into a mere exercise in prepping students to test well." In light of this controversy, this issue brief examines the following questions: (1) What do we really know about "teaching to the test"? (2) Does high stakes testing always force educators to "dumb down" instruction to focus on rote skills and memorization? (3) Do schools that spend a lot of time on test preparation instruction actually perform better on standardized tests? The author, who himself teaches at a high poverty secondary school, concludes the article by pointing out that it is also possible for educators to make better choices about how and when to teach to the test than alarmist media articles would seem to suggest. He argues that it is time to overturn the common assumption that teaching to the test is the "only" option schools have when faced with high-stakes testing. (Contains 34 endnotes.) [This issue brief was produced by The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, and Learning Point Associates.]