The new KITE (Kansas Interactive Testing Engine) testing that the state of Kansas has required us SMWest juniors to take is ridiculous. The Class of 2015 has been taking English/Reading and Math Kansas Assessments since the third grade. I thought that once I got to junior year I would finally be done with these ridiculous assessments.

As a student who has grown up taking these assessments, I have a few questions.

Why does the state spend ample amounts of our taxpayer dollars on faulty computerized tests?

My English 11 AP class is currently taking the the KITE English assessment. The first day of testing my class was unable to load the program on our laptops. A counselor came into our classroom and said to shut off our computers because the entire KITE program has crashed. Spending millions of dollars on these tests to not function properly is ridiculous.

What are these tests actually assessing?

When I finally took the first section of the KITE test, I was asked the correct spelling of the word “calendar” and “successfully”. I also had to pick which sentence, out of four, was not a run-on sentence. I have been asked to answer these kind of questions since the third grade. I feel that at the age of 17 it was kind of degrading to answer elementary school level questions.

Where are the funds for these assessments coming from?

I feel like I always hear about schools in the metro, who do not have sufficient funds for programs in their schools. These programs include art classes, sports, and other extracurricular activities.

Why does the government keep funding these faulty computerized assessment programs?

I am a student who wants to know the reasoning behind these unnecessary assessments. I have never been told what our scores count towards. These tests are wasting valuable class time that could be used towards preparing for the English AP tests and finishing up the yearly curriculum.