The point of standardized tests is to take the subjective teacher out of the equation. The classic example of the poor teacher spends the grading period not teaching anything, gives a meaningless exam, and then curves out the grades to give an indication that some students learned and others didn't. At the very least, teachers will have an incentive to treat children differently -- they like this child, don't like that one, give this one the benefit of the doubt, grade based on progress rather than absolute value, etc. Teachers who can't do their job should be weeded out -- and not teaching children the basics is a good indicator that the teacher isn't doing the job.

We need the balance of both subjective teacher grading and standardized tests. If either one of the measures could be corrected to balance out the errors, then we would only need one.

Peace.