Take a look at the questions and answers below to help you get an overview of the issues. There is little agreement on the fairness of this type of standardized, normed test. Critics who argue that the tests themselves are tainted by cultural biases. Critics who argue that the tests are biased by the test publisher, who is deciding what students at each grade level ought to know. This is inescapable unless a state pays a testing company to customize their test to the state's curriculum.
Critics also dislike teachers who teach their students test-taking techniques.
This results, the critics say, in students being unequally prepared to succeed on the test. Critics who argue that standardized tests are misused, don't measure mastery or skill, and fail to measure other academic competencies. However, at the heart of your question is the method of scoring results. This is purely a measure of students against other students. At the opposite end of the spectrum is what is called criterion-referenced testing.