Cactus Shadows High School,

As a social critic, nothing is able to escape my judgment. Education, social norms, politics, even ethics. Everything has flaws. Some more prevalent than others, but the cracks are there, nonetheless. 

As I tape my first letter up, sophomores, juniors, and a select few seniors will be taking the AIMS test. In order to graduate, students must pass all modules of the AIMS. How hard could that possibly be? Not as hard as one would like to imagine and, in all honesty, not as difficult as it should be. 

The false notion among Arizona’s board of education is that this test does its description; namely, they believe the fallacy that it truly “measures our standards.” Of course, as nearly all of us know, the test is a complete and utter mockery of education. As far as standardized testing goes, Arizona ranks 48th out of 50 states in the number of passing students. Arizona also spends the least out of any state on per pupil expenditure. What does all of this mean? The state of Arizona is cutting costs at the expense of education. Instead of planning ahead and aiding in the schooling of the leaders and voters of the future, the state government instead cuts budgets and throws roughly ten million dollars on the ambiguously named “Underground Storage Tank”. Less money in the state’s educational system means that the quality of education goes down. Such a fact is represented in the consistent lowering of passing standards on the AIMS. Year after year, the test is made into more of a joke than it is into a proper tool to “Measure Standards”. The AIMS test, though, happens to particularly successful in one infamous category: insulting the intelligence level of students.

The bottom line is that the AIMS is an absolute sham when compared to the country’s academic standards overall. But, please, for the sake of graduating punctually, along with possibly aiding our standings in the countries education ranks, take it seriously and do well. Arizona might fail in the education sector, but that doesn’t mean you have to.


Cordially,

Jack London.