Are standardized tests truly beneficial?

During my time in school, we had a standarized test called the AIMS. The AIMS is all throughout Arizona, though each state has their own name for their own test. The AIMS is yearly up until high school. In high school you have to pass every test once in your four years of high school. The tests were scheduled once a year, usually before or after Spring Break. The test last for a school week and consists of five parts: science, math, social studies, reading, and writing. The point of these tests is to "measure" learning and determine funding for public schools.

During this time, teachers and students are both bored and stressed out of their mind. Teachers need good scores in order to keep federal funding, (in some areas) keep their pay, and hopefully increase funding. Schools aren't required to adminster these tests, but if they don't, they don't receive federal funding which keeps a school up and running so in a sense they're forced to. A school that consistently fails Adequate Yearly Progress, might have grants and other forums of funding taken away. After five years of failing AYP, a school may be sujected to closure.

In my days in school, especially high school, teachers got so caught up in the tests that they focused more on memorization than processing information. One year, we even got answer keys to our tests. It disrupted our entire school. Once AIMS came, you could forget your class schedule and class work for two weeks. Teachers and staff were more irritable. Students were more likely to fight with it being so close to break and being so stir crazy from testing. It was like a whole shit show. As students, we didn't understand what the importance of these tests were. No one told us that the funding of the school was in our hands. The only thing we knew is we didn't want to take the damn thing. In spite of all this, people still encourage standarized testing and say its beneficial for a multitude of reasoning from measuring a student's learning to keeping teachers accountable (if you mean threatening their pay and their job).

So now that I've explained standardized testing in Arizona, let's get onto the bonus questions.

•Do you think standardized tests truly measure and improve learning?

•Do you think the way teachers are held accountable by these tests is the right way to go about it?

•Do you think kids should know the importance of these tests?

•If you don't agree with standardized tests, what would be your solution to measuring learning and keeping teachers accountable?