High-stakes standardized tests have become the way we gauge student academic achievement. It all comes down to the test, which can be anxiety-causing for students, teachers and even parents. What if your child is a terrible test taker? Or English is their second language? And when teachers are evaluated based on how well their students do, teaching to tests becomes the top priority.

Some hoped the move to the new Common Core system would alleviate the focus on testing ushered in with No Child Left Behind. But as NPR Education Blogger Anya Kamentz says, the reverse might be true.

Kamentz's new book "The Test," looks at the history and pitfalls of high-stakes testing.

"What I've found is what might seem benign in an upper-middle class setting, which is the fretting over and the prepping for testing, when you extrapolate that out over the whole school system, you’ve got some really serious problems," she said.

One of those big problems includes how much is riding on these tests, like who will continue on to the next grade, how a teacher's effectiveness in the classroom will be judged, or even whether a school could be closed. This makes the test a weaker way to measure an entire school, Kamentz said.

"The more consequences you hang on these tests, the weaker they become as actual objective measures. Because in fact, the more you're going to kind of distort the whole process of school and make it into a form of trying to game the test," she said.