Why faith in standardized testing industry is misplaced
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This was written by Todd Farley, author of “ Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry.” Farley worked for 15 years in the K-12 testing business for many of the biggest players (Pearson Education, Educational Testing Service, American Institutes of Research, etc.) on many of the biggest tests (National Assessment of Educational Progress, California High School Exit Exam, Florida Comprehensive Assessment, Virginia Standards of Learning, etc.). A vesion of this appeared on The Huffington Post.
By Todd Farley
As school reformers try to push American education towards a place where standardized tests become more important than teachers, I have to wonder why. What exactly has occurred in standardized testing over the last decade that justifies such belief in large-scale assessments, or such blind faith in the completely unregulated, massively profitable