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Before I discuss the validity and reliability of standardized tests, it's important to know who has a stake in them. Testing is a high profit market with students spending "well over 100 million" dollars on preparation materials for the SAT alone. The College Board, which creates the SAT and the SAT IIs, makes over $125 million each year for the tests themselves. The ACT, which is used to predict a college freshman's grades based on what the student has learned throughout high school and claims that "short term review is not likely to be of much help" sells material such as ACTive Prep software for $495.00. Kaplan, Inc., The National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the Princeton Review also sell materials to prep students "ranging from workbooks to classroom and on-line courses." It's big business to test kids, just look at Kaplan, Inc. and Educational Testing Service (ETS), who alone have a combined revenue of close to $1,000,000,000. Corporations are not the only beneficiaries of these tests, schools who do well on them (predominately upper-class schools with a majority of white students) receive recognition and in some cases large amounts of money. In California, for example, one third of one percent of all the teachers will receive 25,000 dollars for improving scores. Brian Stecher, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corp. says "Imagine what would happen in any organization if a tiny fraction of people could earn $25,000 by scoring best on some specific measure of performance. People would find every means possible to look good on that measure. Some co-workers.... would focus their energies only on those things that pay and ignore the rest of their responsibilities. Worst of all, some would resort to tricks or deceit to improve their schools." In Austin we have seen this happen. AISD was indicted after several school administrators were found interfering with testing materials and documents. The capitalistic reasons for testing children, despite the fact that their is a real and measurable gap between races and classes, is hardly recognized, but should precede any conversation about the value and validity of standardized tests. |
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