Testing as civic‑accountability tool

Standardized, transparent testing should be treated as a public instrument for judging whether schools perform the basic civic task of transmitting knowledge and civic competence. Restoring serious tests would create comparable public data, expose where remediation is needed, and reduce the ability of institutions to substitute spectacle or managerial rhetoric for measurable outcomes. — Framing testing as civic accountability reframes debates about education from culture-war anecdotes to a governance question about public information and legitimacy.