Not All Teachers Keen on Periodic Tests

John W. Hutcheson now teaches in a private Montessori school in Sammamish, Wash., after spending 25 years teaching in the Dallas school district. Looking back, he says the Texas district’s thrice-yearly benchmark assessments helped drive him out.

“The benchmarks themselves are a reflection of the standardized exams,” Mr. Hutcheson said, “which are only a small piece of learning. You progressively keep narrowing the curriculum down, so we end up preparing students for a world that doesn’t exist.”

Across the country, school districts are adopting benchmark assessments to help teachers modify instruction over the course of a school year. Yet many teachers remain wary. Like Mr. Hutcheson, they say their experience with such tests has...