Comment on Standardized Testing

I recently read an article by Hunter Maddox on his blog Texas: Don't Move Here about Texas standardized testing and these are my thoughts:

I agree that standardized tests have become too prominent in Texas schools.  In my opinion, they do not gauge a student's knowledge, only how well they can take a test.  Also, the original purpose of standardized testing was to see how the states stacked up against one another.  However, the tests are different in every state so there is no way to compare the knowledge levels across state lines.  There should be one test every year that is the same for every state, or no test at all.  I wrote a blog about this for my first editorial and I believe that Texas schools' performance should be based on how many students go to college, not on a yearly test.  Ideally, this would create a better society in Texas and possibly bring our state to the top of American education.