Education Week: Standardized Testing Costs States $1.7 Billion a Year, Study Says

Education Week: Standardized Testing Costs States $1.7 Billion a Year, Study Says:

Standardized Testing Costs States $1.7 Billion a Year, Study Says

By Andrew Ujifusa

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Standardized-testing regimens cost states some $1.7 billion a year overall, or a quarter of 1 percent of total K-12 spending in the United States, according to a new report on assessment finances.

The report released Nov. 29 by the Washington-based Brown Center on Education Policy, at the Brookings Institution, calculates that the test spending by 44 states and the District of Columbia amounted to $65 per student on average in grades 3-9 based on the most recent test-cost data the researchers could gather. (The Brown Center report was not able to gather that data from Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming.)

It also says that the District of Columbia spends the most on its assessments per student—$114—of the 45 jurisdictions Brookings measured, followed by Hawaii, Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, and Massachusetts. New York, where test scoring is a local responsibility, spent the least—$7 per student—followed by Kansas, North Carolina, Oregon, and Utah