You're 10 years old and, judging by the orange juice, graham crackers and the cadet-blue test booklet placed on your school desk, you can tell it's MEAP day. You're prepared. You're in the zone. After all, your school spent an entire year throwing curriculum to the wind as it prepped your fifth-grade class for this do-or-die day.

There currently are discussions to eliminate the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, or MEAP, a system that periodically tests students throughout their academic careers in order to assess schools' performances. Supporters of the MEAP's removal propose the ACT Assessment as an alternative, more accurate way to judge education.

Though the MEAP has its faults, its purpose is to examine the performance and effectiveness of Michigan's public schools. The ACT is designed to assess individual students and therefore, cannot be used to make judgments on the school systems themselves. The ACT is a better test, a more practical test, but is not the answer to MEAP's problems.

And there are many problems.

No school should feel forced to waste entire academic years specifically teaching the standards of a single exam. Both teachers and students suffer when a curriculum is void of originality and flexibility. When students are forced to forgo field trips in order to practice bubble-filling, the program has gone too far.

But with the current system, schools have no choice. Educators must dedicate entire curriculums to MEAP standards, otherwise students could fail, causing districts to lose state funding. In this backward system, schools that perform the worst on the exam and need funding the most to improve schools receive less state money than schools already performing well.

If the MEAP is to remain, it must be re-evaluated. The test should be designed to accurately evaluate school performance and serve as an indication of which districts actually need a boost. It should not, however, dictate the manner in which students are educated.