Tests and exams, over time, have proven valuable to teachers. They can help easily tell how well one student is doing in comparison to the rest of the class. If a student does well, it shows that he is prepared to move on. If a student does poorly, he needs more time with the material. It makes sense when trying to know how a student is doing.
The Kansas State Assessments, however, try to apply this logic on a larger scale. They try to use this testing method to see which schools are doing well and which need work. This is foolhardy. The government cannot take a method for measuring individual students
and try to make it apply to entire schools. The idea is faulty, the test is faulty and the logic behind punishing a school when they fail to meet these unreasonable goals is faulty.
Teachers generally build their tests around the material that they cover in classes. This way, the teachers know that they already taught the students any information they need. Meanwhile, the state assessments can have nothing to do with what students have been taught, but rather what the state thinks they need to know. This results in students being punished for not knowing material they have yet to be taught.
Proponents of the system say that students cannot be blamed for their shortcomings and the school should help those students. The problem is, the school can do nothing about students who simply refuse to try. The school can only help the students who want to be helped. Furthermore, it is illogical to punish a school for the students who do not do well. Taking away funding and labeling a school as remedial for these tests is harmful and illogical.
The state assessments should not be viewed as a reasonable measure to which all schools should be held. The results of the test are meaningless. These meaningless numbers are nothing to punish students, let alone entire schools, over. The state should not punish its schools for the tests, the schools should not punish their students over it, and the students should not waste their time on a meaningless test.
