Confused

I feel confused about assessment. I'm in the middle of writing my philosophy of assessment. I know what is supposed to be in it, and I realize that the author of our book made a few good points.

I guess I feel confused because even though I know that assessment can be positive and shows that students are learning and all that jazz, I hate the idea of using assessment data as a way of advocating for music education, which is something the author mentions in his first Chapter. I also don't understand why the only forms of assessment some other subject teachers give are tests and graded homeworks and that is ok, but when a music teacher wants to use teacher observation and maybe some quizzes or journal, it might not be enough.

I want to say that I honestly feel that we try to overcompensate to show that music is a "real" subject and that assessment should not be the only indicators that children are learning, but I feel like I can't write that in my paper because it's against a lot of what the author of our book was saying.

I don't know. I guess wish me luck on finishing the paper.