Here’s a scene familiar to anyone who follows the education debate: The latest international test scores arrive, and America policymakers and politicians wring their hands and gnash their teeth over the results. The comparisons begin almost as soon as the numbers are released. How could the United States, whose economy is the envy of the world, lag behind so many countries in so many testing categories?

For decades, our policy response to these numbers has been to put more effort into winning the standardized testing race, a desperate effort to keep up with the South Koreas and Singapores of the world by adding more tests at younger and younger ages. It is, unfortunately, a race we may never win. But more importantly, it’s a race we shouldn’t participate in in the first place. Why? Because aping the world’s best test-takers may do little for our educational system or economy — and worse still, it may cause our students irreparable harm.