Does stressing performance goals lead to too much, well, stress?

There is compelling evidence that stressing goals leads to stress and negatively affects the very objectives that educators are trying to achieve. Reaching testing goals matter, but if we're not careful, the goal of educating children for the 21st century becomes subsumed by the narrow measures meant to track progress. Performance measures become the goals. Stress overtakes inspiration. If it's true that what gets measured, gets done, then it's important that we measure the right things. Outputs like standardized test scores and graduation rates matter, but how we achieve outputs matters too. Process really is as important as product.