Personal philosophy about assessment

I think that it's really sad how these Rhodes' kids are assessed, for the shear fact that they are NOT assessed at all. They are shuffled through from year to year, not learning anything! I teach 8th grade English and would go as far to say that the majority of my students are at a 4th grade all-around academic level. They are not held accountable for any sort of curriculum and the standardized AZ Merit testing is a joke to these kids. We just had testing a few days ago and the students were allotted 3 hours to complete the test. They were all "done" within an hour and a half (most shorter than that) and my thoughts are that they simply had no clue what the test was asking/saying. But, for these kids who know that they are going to advance to the next grade any way, why does this test (and any school for that matter) even matter? It is sad and it is ridiculous.