Everything works

Punish a child to teach him a lesson and he'll learn that you can use power over those weaker than you to get what you want.

Reward students for high testsandgrades or punish them for low testsandgrades and you teach children that testsandgrades, not learning, are the point of school.

Use multiple choice tests as your primary form of assessment and you teach children that in the real world you don't have to generate your own response to solve problems.

Frame learning as a competition and you force children to see their peers as obstacles to their own success.

Assign boatloads of nightly homework to children and you encourage them to see learning as this thing they just need to get done before they can return to their regularly scheduled lives.

Praise administrators for their district or school's standardized test scores and you push them to place pressure on their teachers to attain higher scores by whatever means available.

Mandate teachers to attend one-size-fits-all, "drive-by" professional development sessions and you teach them that professional development is something done to them rather than by them.

Catch children being good and you encourage them to be good so they get caught.

Everything "works". The question is: works to do what?