Recently, the Obama administration announced their belief that no test should define a class, a student or a teacher. Yet, this isn’t the main idea in schools today.

From a student’s perspective, schools in general (namely high schools) become so wrapped up with the idea of being the best and having the smartest students that they lose sight of actually teaching students. And by losing this sight, school’s lose their main focus of educating students.

Schools, particularly the people who run them, don’t escape conformity. Just like their students, schools want to look good and be the best. The entire school system is just a giant competition to see who’s on top. Because of this, there is an obvious rivalry between schools, districts and states that inhibits the education of the students themselves. It is this need to be the best academically which overrules the actual purpose of taking a test: to assess our knowledge of the subject.

The dictionary would say a test is the means of determining the presence, quality and reliability of something. But in all reality, a test is a glorified version of memorization that seeks to enhance the appearance of a school’s effectiveness.

It has come to a point where students just want to do well and please both teachers and parents, but when an immense amount of pressure is put on students to do well, they brake. This crack within forces us to resort to our “defense mechanisms,” which in this case, is straight memorization. Therefore, by hindering students, school administrators hinder the entire testing system.

So, what people need to understand is that yes, from the outside, it appears as if tests give students the ability to gauge where they are academically. However, from the inside, all tests really show is how well a student can memorize the information.