Thoughts on school testing

School testing should be used for diagnostic purposes, only. It should not define a student any more than a medical test should define us. They tell us a little bit about how students are learning, but they also tell us about the kinds of questions we like to ask and the kinds of answers we are trying to get. 

Let's look at medical tests. Ideally, they are used to gauge the health of a patient. But they are specific in their scope. They test for cholesterol level, white blood cell production, the presence of a particular bacterium, etc. Doctors look at them and make recommendations to the patient regarding treatments, diets, lifestyle choices, etc. Ultimately, the person has to choose what's right for him/herself. Some recommendations like "take this antibiotic to clear up the infection" are pretty clear and important to follow, but overall, human bodies and lifestyles are far too various for health to be easily gauged. Still, we trust doctors to choose the tests and make educated recommendations. If we don't follow them, well, we don't blame the doctor for not forcing us. 

Now, what if we judged hospitals like we judge schools and treated the doctors like teachers? Government would mandate higher standards for health, and an independent company would develop some tests to score our health on a rigid scale. If patients were scoring too low on these tests, we would ignore environmental, genetic, and free will factors and just blame the doctors. If we could only get rid of bad doctors, after all, our health would skyrocket. Government officials would make bold statements like "everyone will be healthy by 2020." Hospitals would be judged by the test scores, and punishments would be enacted if they didn't make adequate progress toward the elimination of ailments. Hospitals that only admit the healthiest of patients would be praised for the quality of their care, and ones claiming that their patients are affected by their inability to afford basic sanitation in their homes would be berated for saying that "poor people can't be healthy." Faith based health care facilities would gain popularity as an alternative to poor area hospitals, and Dr. Atkins could open up a publicly funded charter hospital to show how the elimination of carbohydrates will make all people healthy. If either venture failed, it would be blamed on the lack of doctor buy-in.  The American Medical Association would be attacked for protecting bad doctors. By the time 2020 came around, the cutoff scores on the tests would be lowered so that even 300lb 10 year olds would be considered healthy. Each state would declare victory. Doctors would move out of the ER and into hospital administration quickly, where their jobs would be safe.