Listen to what you're saying. The test isn't the problem, the problem lies with the teachers and the school administrators who allow the time to be spent the way it is.
The taxpayer has not only the right, but the obligation to inspect what they expect. And, what they expect is that the teachers are teaching. The ONLY way to do that is to test the fruits of the teacher's alleged labor. That is accomplished with testing - which shouldn't be called testing, but inspecting.
My wife has been an educator for 25-years. She's a professor of English. She rants, especially this time of year - the start of the school year - about how criminally unprepared her incoming students are - almost incapable of writing anything longer than a tweet. BUT, the students sure know it's ok for little Suzie to have two mommies.
If teachers spent more time teaching, and less time social engineering, the end of the year testing wouldn't be a problem, for anyone.
I don’t have an issue with any test. I have an issue with 2-3 months of the school year being wasted teaching to the test.
The whole system is a mess from the top down.
Regarding testing: my brother-in-law teaches at a school where the annual turn-over in students is 90%. Most of the kids he has now will not be in his class in April. Most of the kids there in April will arrive in his class over the next 6 months. And his results are evaluated the same as someone who teaches in a stable setting, with kids there multiple years in a row.
My sister used to teach refugee kids. Most didn’t know English at the start of the year, and a big part of her job was teaching them to stand in line, no fighting, and basic English. And every April, her kids would be tested on standard tests - and she would be compared to classes across the state. In some cases, she just told the kid to mark all answers “A”, since the kid couldn’t read any of the questions.
Standardized tests have a role to play, but they are becoming the end all of teaching even though there aren’t many standard classes.
Not sure what it's like where you live, but here the administration is the one calling the shots. Teachers follow the orders from them to teach for the stupid tests. They have little or no say in it. They get stressed out. The students get stressed out. The administration doesn't get it. They only want the money and status that comes with the high test scores. Idiots! If they would allow the teachers to really teach the students, they would KNOW the material for the tests.