Scripted passwd but it won't really be quiet!

First off, sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

I have made a script that will always set the password back to a specified value when I log in as root, this is because for testing purposes I regularly change it as I'm logged in..but this isn't the point.

The thing that's bothering me is that the way I've done is:
passwd < the_password_is_here

where the_password_is_here has:
password
password

However, I want the whole passwd process to be quiet and not print anything to the screen.

Using:
passwd < the_password_is_here > dump
or
passwd < the_password_is_here | > dump

Did not work.
I'm assuming what's fundamentally wrong is the way I'm passing in a text file like that to circumvent me having to type the password in. If that's the case...what do I do to make it change my root password but not say a peep on the screen?

echo "passwd" | passwd --stdin [ user ] > /dev/null

My passwd doesn't accept the option for --stdin when I tried it a few days ago.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?