For-profit standardized testing industry can't be trusted - Tampa Bay Times:
For-profit standardized testing industry can't be trusted
By Todd Farley, Special to the Times
In Print: Sunday, May 20, 2012
The scores for the writing portion of this year's FCAT plummeted so precipitously that the abilities of Florida's student writers aren't even being called into question. The validity of the scoring statistics are. While I don't want to say "I told you so" regarding the dubiousness of those statistics, I did tell you so, as my 2009 book highlighted in detail all the ways the numbers produced by the for-profit standardized testing industry cannot be trusted.
Take the stats produced at Pearson scoring centers around the country, where I worked for the better part of 15 years. On the first project I worked scoring student essays, I had to pass a qualifying exam to stay on the jo
