More of the Privatization Chronicles

Last week I took a test required for Oregon licensure, and it was a computerized test created by an outfit called Pearson. It is a London-based conglomerate that owns Prentice-Hall and Penguin Books.

It is everywhere in public education, which is increasingly being privatized. This article is from last September:

Others are more strident in their criticism of testing. The problem, opponents say, is that from testing to charter schools, the reform movement has begun to pick apart public schools as we know them in favor of the private sector. “The current movement distrusts educators,” says Ed Fuller, an education researcher and vocal critic of standardized tests who just left the University of Texas for the Pennsylvania State University. “They’re trying to create a system that’s educator-proof. The way you do that is to have testing and accountability, more and more and more of it. Because we don’t trust educators to do what’s right, to make good judgments about what kids know and what they can do.”

Fuller points to the book Measuring Up by Harvard professor Daniel Koretz, which argues that students learn test-taking strategies that pollute testers’ ability to see what the students actually know. “The whole issue is that any test at the kind of level that it’s at, especially with it being multiple choice—you can sit down and teach a kid how to pass it without them understanding the concepts behind the test,” Fuller argues. He’s particularly critical of the number of multiple-choice questions that Texas state assessments feature, but says few in the Legislature want to hear about the drawbacks of such exams. The combination of Pearson’s power and reformers’ influence, he says, makes it difficult for legislators to assess testing’s efficacy.