I still fail to see why there is always this choice proposed that you can either have a educational system driven by test scores or have teachers who are able to teach students correctly, but not both.

Time and time again I hear the argument that teachers now have to "teach the test". If it's possible for a teacher to "teach the test", and students can pass it just by route memorization, well then surely these are some pretty horrible tests!

It's rare to hear people want to reform the actual format and content of the tests to ensure that "teaching the test" is less possible. You could argue, for example, allowing more free-form answers, or creative test formats that allow students to display critical thinking skills to the grader would do just as much to reduce the "teaching to the test problem" as throwing out tests as the primary means of evaluating performance, but you don't really hear this argument all that often.

Admittedly I know little about it, but I find it pretty hard to believe that the best teachers, who do engage their students and provide them a solid education, end up with classrooms of worldly students that end up failing standardized tests.