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> They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. This is totally false. State standardized test is the natur

> They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. This is totally false. State standardized test is the natural consequence of state public education accountability system. There must be a comparable measure across all the public schools in the state as the foundation for accountability measurements. And all (>95%) the students must be tested for equity reasons. No matter how many misinformation you read about standardized tests, the simple fact is that it is the only way to measure student learning of a huge population and get meaningful / comparable results. Is it perfect? No. Is there a better alternative? No. The whole idea that a few testing companies imposed the standardized tests on students is simply a conspiracy theory.

nitrogen 5y ago
I read their comment not as saying that standardized tests are Pearson's fault, but that Pearson gets states to mandate that they are Pearson tests.
- temp8964 5y ago
  Every state has a selection process. Several testing companies will bet on the contract.
  - truth_ 5y ago
    There's a lot of shady practices involved there, that is one of my points.
- truth_ 5y ago
  Is that not clear from my comment? Whether standardized tests are good or bad is a whole other debate. The point here is- they lobby to get standardized tests mandated where they were not, then they lobby snd push their tests for statewide use very hard. All school districts have to buy test questions and other infrastructure from them only. And only Pearson certified teachers can evaluate those copies. And every step of the process involves Pearson getting paid. This is like the Mafia. Thanks for pointing it out.
  - temp8964 5y ago
    You apparently don't know what you are talking about. No. Testing companies do not lobby to get standardized tests mandated where they were not. The federal government mandates this as a requirement for federal money. Districts do not pay for the state test or buy test questions from Pearson...
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Testing companies do not lobby to get standardized tests mandated where they were not. Yes, they do. > The federal government mandates this as a requirement for federal money. Sure, some mandates come from the federal government; others are from state governments, and still others from local governments. Guess who lobbies legislators making those decisions, especially at the federal level, but also at the state level, and sometimes, especially for larger jurisdictions, at the local level?
      - temp8964 5y ago
        Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if they don't lobby? Same.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if they don't lobby? Same. Obviously, they disagree, or they wouldn’t spend money lobbying, which isn’t something companies do just to burn money. They do it because they expect RoI on the money spent lobbying.
        temp8964 5y ago
        Can you give an example what will happen if states do not use standardized tests?
        dragonwriter 5y ago
manquer 5y ago
It is nuanced, they don't directly drive the need for standardization, but drive to privatize the standardization. Doing that, they can influence a lot on the scoring, quality, content and certifications around the standardization and fund the psychometric research establishing validity/equity of the tests. Like any other big org biz, specing the RFP is one easy way to win the contract. A decision marker (corporate or government) is likely to choose and mandate a pearson test rather than fund the research and development of their own which best fits their needs because it is easier. Unlike other industries testing by is nature becomes monopolistic, nobody is going to say you can either of these three tests : it is hard to compare between two tests, so winner takes all. Pearson and others in the space, exploit this by high prices , poor content etc because that's what monopoly tend to do. This is all because of privatization of school vendors, why can't content and tests be developed by the state as well ?. Many countries do this.
- temp8964 5y ago
  I am not sure what you are talking about. There are several testing companies, Pearson is not the only one. And states have a selection process and technical review process done by outside psychometricians. Yes. There are places where tests were developed by the government agencies, which are not professionals. Mostly their tests lack psychometric regorious, not comparable across years. I'm not sure what you meant "poor content". A few flaws here and there?
  - madhadron 5y ago
    The question, then, is why not have the state university build the tests and write the textbooks? Then you fund the actual creation once and can straightforwardly fund updates and alterations as needed.
    - temp8964 5y ago
      State universities are not good at doing either. There are not enough psychometricians or test writers or textbook writers in psychology or curriculum and instruction departments. State government is not better at doing things than big companies. Hope your solution is not to ask the government to do everything.
alisonkisk 5y ago
It's far less work to type two words into a search engine than to write an I'll informed comment. Why trouble yourself with the long embarrassing comment? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/30/report-big-education-firms-spend-millions-lobbying-for-pro-testing-policies/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/...
syshum 5y ago
The problem is in recent years it has taken on something else... Standardized tests can be a window in the performance and health of the overall system, or over a group of students, but it is not reasonably determinate of the knowledge level of an individual student. Which is how they are often used In the beginning it was used to judge the performance of a teacher or school, today is it used to judge the performance of the student something it is not really equipped for. This is similar to BMI, BMI is useful as a health metric on a population of people, but is not very useful as a metric on the health of an individual

nitrogen 5y ago

I read their comment not as saying that standardized tests are Pearson's fault, but that Pearson gets states to mandate that they are Pearson tests.

temp8964 5y ago
Every state has a selection process. Several testing companies will bet on the contract.
- truth_ 5y ago
  There's a lot of shady practices involved there, that is one of my points.
truth_ 5y ago
Is that not clear from my comment? Whether standardized tests are good or bad is a whole other debate. The point here is- they lobby to get standardized tests mandated where they were not, then they lobby snd push their tests for statewide use very hard. All school districts have to buy test questions and other infrastructure from them only. And only Pearson certified teachers can evaluate those copies. And every step of the process involves Pearson getting paid. This is like the Mafia. Thanks for pointing it out.
- temp8964 5y ago
  You apparently don't know what you are talking about. No. Testing companies do not lobby to get standardized tests mandated where they were not. The federal government mandates this as a requirement for federal money. Districts do not pay for the state test or buy test questions from Pearson...
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Testing companies do not lobby to get standardized tests mandated where they were not. Yes, they do. > The federal government mandates this as a requirement for federal money. Sure, some mandates come from the federal government; others are from state governments, and still others from local governments. Guess who lobbies legislators making those decisions, especially at the federal level, but also at the state level, and sometimes, especially for larger jurisdictions, at the local level?
    - temp8964 5y ago
      Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if they don't lobby? Same.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if they don't lobby? Same. Obviously, they disagree, or they wouldn’t spend money lobbying, which isn’t something companies do just to burn money. They do it because they expect RoI on the money spent lobbying.
        temp8964 5y ago
        Can you give an example what will happen if states do not use standardized tests?
        dragonwriter 5y ago

manquer 5y ago

It is nuanced, they don't directly drive the need for standardization, but drive to privatize the standardization. Doing that, they can influence a lot on the scoring, quality, content and certifications around the standardization and fund the psychometric research establishing validity/equity of the tests. Like any other big org biz, specing the RFP is one easy way to win the contract. A decision marker (corporate or government) is likely to choose and mandate a pearson test rather than fund the research and development of their own which best fits their needs because it is easier. Unlike other industries testing by is nature becomes monopolistic, nobody is going to say you can either of these three tests : it is hard to compare between two tests, so winner takes all. Pearson and others in the space, exploit this by high prices , poor content etc because that's what monopoly tend to do. This is all because of privatization of school vendors, why can't content and tests be developed by the state as well ?. Many countries do this.

temp8964 5y ago
I am not sure what you are talking about. There are several testing companies, Pearson is not the only one. And states have a selection process and technical review process done by outside psychometricians. Yes. There are places where tests were developed by the government agencies, which are not professionals. Mostly their tests lack psychometric regorious, not comparable across years. I'm not sure what you meant "poor content". A few flaws here and there?
- madhadron 5y ago
  The question, then, is why not have the state university build the tests and write the textbooks? Then you fund the actual creation once and can straightforwardly fund updates and alterations as needed.
  - temp8964 5y ago
    State universities are not good at doing either. There are not enough psychometricians or test writers or textbook writers in psychology or curriculum and instruction departments. State government is not better at doing things than big companies. Hope your solution is not to ask the government to do everything.

alisonkisk 5y ago

It's far less work to type two words into a search engine than to write an I'll informed comment. Why trouble yourself with the long embarrassing comment? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/30/report-big-education-firms-spend-millions-lobbying-for-pro-testing-policies/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/...

syshum 5y ago

The problem is in recent years it has taken on something else... Standardized tests can be a window in the performance and health of the overall system, or over a group of students, but it is not reasonably determinate of the knowledge level of an individual student. Which is how they are often used In the beginning it was used to judge the performance of a teacher or school, today is it used to judge the performance of the student something it is not really equipped for. This is similar to BMI, BMI is useful as a health metric on a population of people, but is not very useful as a metric on the health of an individual