Teaching to the Test

I loved watching the 7 Skills students need for their future. I was just having a conversation with my co-teacher this morning during planning about how we are trying to find that balance of catering to our students' needs and still doing what is being asked of us from our district (better test scores). I couldn’t quite put my thoughts into words but he summed it up perfectly with the story about the superintendent visiting the top schools. It’s not the kids and it’s not the teachers, it is what we are being forced to do so we can improve a test score on a standardized test that does not even accurately measure a student on the most important skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. I used to be very confident about what I taught in my classroom. Over the past year going through this program, I have really started to reflect on myself and how/what I teach. Some of these realizations have been tough to come to, but I have been teaching to a test. But is this truly what is best for my students? How do you go about changing this when your campus/district is more concerned with the data?