Cost Trades-Off with Instructional Resources

Commodification

Test scores commodify education, making scores buyallbe and sellable

Sarah Jaffee, January 4, 2012, Standardized Tests Hurt Kids and Public Schools, Alternet, http://www.alternet.org/story/153654/standardized_tests_hurt_kids_and_public_schools:_teachers,_parents_take_a_stand_against_corporate-backed_test_regime DOA: 10-26-15

Jonathan Keiler, a Maryland teacher writing at Education Week, explained the way test scores became a commodity—and create incentives for cheating or gaming the system along the way.

Value-added evaluations [in other words, pay increases related to high test scores] both directly and indirectly monetize student performance, and because money is a basic commodity, the process then turns student scores into a commodity. Of course, that performance is not monetized for the students; it is monetized for the teachers and administrators. By making student scores the basis for evaluation, the students and their scores create a market for the teachers and administrators whose livelihoods depend upon the results.

We are rewarding teachers for turning out kids with good test scores, even if they are not necessarily well educated.

When student scores become like orange juice, pork bellies, or yen, the people with the greatest incentive to cheat are the weakest teachers and administrators.

Where could this lead? Schools could become little more than test-preparation institutes, ignoring subjects and skills that are not assessed, with faculty members who resent and distrust one another. Meanwhile, many honest and dutiful teachers will go down in flames.

Cheating scandals have already erupted. In one notable case, in schools that Michelle Rhee, education reform darling and former Washington, DC schools chancellor, held up as a model of her brand of education.

Jeff Bryant at Campaign for America's Future said that by making test scores the primary measure of school accountability, the education reform crowd could link every financial aspect of schools to test scores -- from teacher salaries to federal funds. He wrote, “[S]tandardized test scores are now the 'currency' of education that enables all sorts of resource swaps that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, including charter schools for traditional public schools, online learning for face-to-face teaching, and experienced, tenured teachers for Teach for America amateurs.”

Hirschmann said one of the purposes of the testing regime is to “deprofessionalize the profession of teaching.” Parents tend to trust teachers, but now, she said, “The teacher can't even teach to the child anymore because it's not child-centered, it's test-centered. Everyone's talking about what they can do, what they can bring in, what they can buy to raise the test scores.”

What they can buy, often, seems to be the point.

Robertson pointed out that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the right-wing policy network that cranks out model legislation for the states (now with help from the Gates Foundation) has been deeply involved in pushing testing and “merit pay” in schools. She noted that the profit motive has snuck into even the passing of national standards for teaching materials. “They've got the common core standards, now they can say these are the textbooks you need, the test prep, we're going to roll out the state test for you.”

Abby Rapoport at the Texas Observer reported that federal law requires states to use standardized tests, but doesn't specify which test, so testing companies compete for fat contracts to do the state's testing. Back in 2005, Questar, one of 17 companies at the time that created, printed and scored standardized tests, did approximately $2.2 billion in business a year. And testing has only increased since then.

Meanwhile, the same testing companies administer state tests also sell textbooks, test prep materials and much more. Rapoport wrote:

From textbooks to data management, professional development programs to testing systems, Pearson has it all—and all of it has a price. For statewide testing in Texas alone, the company holds a five-year contract worth nearly $500 million to create and administer exams. If students should fail those tests, Pearson offers a series of remedial-learning products to help them pass. Meanwhile, kids are likely to use textbooks from Pearson-owned publishing houses like Prentice Hall and Pearson Longman. Students who want to take virtual classes may well find themselves in a course subcontracted to Pearson. And if the student drops out, Pearson partners with the American Council on Education to offer the GED exam for a profit.

“There's a huge amount of money to be made off of children who have to take high-stakes tests,” Hirschmann noted, and so the testing companies think nothing of spending a bit on politicians. “Pearson has been offering trips; David Steiner, the former [New York state] commissioner of education, went on one of these junkets and Pearson has the contract.”

Meanwhile in Texas, Rapoport reported that in the most recent legislative session, an unprecedented $5 billion was hacked from the public education budget. “Despite the cuts,” she noted, “Pearson’s funding streams remain largely intact.”