No Test Left Behind: How Pearson Made a Killing on the US Testing Craze

[tpmjoe]

Three days after taking office, George W. Bush unveiled his signature domestic policy, No Child Left Behind. The bill would triple the number of exams the federal government required of students, while dangling stiff penalties over struggling schools. For many educators it felt like a depth charge...

[oldengoldendecoy]

Some background . . .

The law has come with a hefty price tag for taxpayers. A 2012 study by the Brookings Institution determined that states spend $1.7 billion per year on testing, an enormous increase over the $423 million states spent in 2001 before NCLB, according to the Pew Center on the States. All of this money has fueled a booming testing industry, with companies like Pearson racking up billions in sales. A POLITICO investigation published on February 10, 2015 revealed that Pearson receives tens of millions in taxpayer dollars even though there is “little proof its products and services are effective.”

http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/case-standardized-testing/

Who is participating in the PARCC tests?

In the 2015-16 school year, 11 partners are participating in the PARCC assessment system. These include eight fully-participating states (Colorado, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. In addition, the Bureau of Indian Education, Department of Defense schools and Louisiana also are also participating at varying levels.

http://www.parcconline.org/about/states

~OGD~

[amandacorliss]

The important thing to remember is that the billions and billions of dollars that have been going to testing corporations were previously used in direct services to our children. Our elected officials like to complain about school budgets but forget that the money given to the testing corporations is no longer available to our schools and classrooms. That sucking sound is the transfer of money from classrooms to corporations and many wonder why our schools are hurting.

[buckguy]

NCLB has used testing in exactly the way it shouldn't be used.The testing has been too frequent to be useful, as well as corrupting to the educational process (teaching to the test, test fraud on a wide scale). No credible psychological measurement researcher or psychodiagnostic practitioner would have used these regimes--the reliability and validity of tests is compromised by these practices. Significantly a lot of the development of these tests was done by people who had no experience with educational testing.

[oldengoldendecoy]

Hello there... @buckguy ...

You and others may find this entire thread from 2013 quite useful. I chose these two comments by @Diane_Ravitch to highlight her basic position on testing...

Education cannot be reduced to metrics. When I wrote about the latest PISA scores, I pointed out that they predict nothing about the future of our economy. When international testing started in the mid-1960s, we were dead last, but we subsequently outperformed every nation with higher scores. High scores are nice but they can be induced by incessant test prep, which is not good education. And I have no doubt that many white collar criminals have high test scores. They are very smart but they have no character.

And...

SchoolBoy, US students are not "sucking it up," whatever that means. There is enormous pressure to take tests and get high scores on tests. The pressure is not healthy for very young children, and the test prep obsession leads to bad education. A great education is one in which children learn how to learn, gain the knowledge and skills to function in the world, and find joy in learning, Without that joy, there is no incentive to learn more. Most of our lives will not be spent in school, but living a life in which we either learn and grow, or not. I care passionately about seeing all kids have equality of educational opportunity; I care passionately about the quality of education. And I believe--having spent 7 years as a member of the federal National Assessment Governing Board--that standardized tests should play a far smaller role in education than they now do

forums.talkingpointsmemo.com/t/live-chat-diane-ravitch-author-of-reign-of-error-noon-est-friday-december-13

~OGD~

[bstern]

At the risk of my own job, there is another factor here.

I'm a researcher in higher education. I started this work in 1993, before most of this stuff happened.

Back then, institutional research was a maybe half time job for one person. Most offices were single person shops, with maybe a faculty member helping out part time.

Now, for example, the last college district I worked for employed 14 staff members full time to deal with all of the regulatory requirements, plus requests from US News, Princeton, and dozens of other private folks. With fringe, this is probably around $2 million. For maybe 25,000 full time equivalent students.

[buckguy]

Sadly, Ravitch spent much of her career defending these other useless practices. Her late in life conversion is insufficient--she should have questioned these practices well before her she completed her 7 years on the Governing Board.

[oldengoldendecoy]

Just answer this . . .

What better person as a whistleblower to break down the walls of the castle-building pedagogues than Diane Ravitch?

From 40 years of personal on the site observations I couldn't agree more with her positions. (my bold)

"As No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) accountability regime took over the nation's schools under President George W. Bush and more and more charter schools were launched, I supported these initiatives. But over time, I became disillusioned with the strategies that once seemed so promising. I no longer believe that either approach will produce the quantum improvement in American education that we all hope for."

//snip//

"The current emphasis on accountability has created a punitive atmosphere in the schools. The Obama administration seems to think that schools will improve if we fire teachers and close schools. They do not recognize that schools are often the anchor of their communities, representing values, traditions and ideals that have persevered across decades. They also fail to recognize that the best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers."

(WSJ 2010 paywall)

That article is a MUST READ.

~OGD~

[atomicfern]

I work for the ADA/Access lab at the local community college and we fight not to work on Pearson books as they make it incredibly difficult for screen readers apps for the visual impaired. The most recent book i worked had about every 5th e removed from the PDF that was made, according to them, specifically for ADA students.

[buckguy]

Ravitch's late in life conversion may get her into heaven and enable her to get gigs to write "now I know" op-eds but that doesn't translate into power. Her old cronies in "education reform" probably see her as a traitor. and she's far from the only knowledgeable critic of these practices. She's not going to save us from further stupidities. Education is dominated by faddishness---"new math", tone deaf versions of progressive education, rote learning, test based "accountability". It's one sad thing after another and its because everyone thinks they're an expert and the actual evidence base for good practice is rarely invoked--it's not faddish or sexy and good practice takes time and work.NCLB needed work but did so in a way that generated cash for people/orgs like Pearson or the execrable Michele Rhee It was a panacea that media types never bothered to critique. We've had one cycle after another that more or less follows that script and we'll have more, I'm sure.