5 things to know about the financial cost of testing
The Notebook is examining standardized testing this month. The topic is the focus of our upcoming edition due out this week.
1. Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf has requested a total of $58.3 million for testing in the current budget.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) contracts with Data Recognition Corp. (DRC) for the PSSAs and the Keystones. Both contracts run through June 2016 and cover test development, administration, scoring, and reporting. In 2014-15, the company received about $30 million for the PSSAs – about $39 per student tested – and $27 million for the Keystones.
DRC also provides classroom diagnostic tools and other preparatory materials through theeDirect website.
2. The actual costs of testing to districts and schools – including staff time, prep, and materials – are hard to estimate.
Districts and schools generally don’t separate out these costs. In the Philadelphia School District, for example, assessment, curriculum, and instruction are combined in one department.
PDE also does not break out separate testing administration costs.
The Council of the Great City Schools, in a report issued in October, analyzed testing expenses for the 200,000-student Hillsborough School District in Florida and found the total to be $2.2 million in testing expenses, which made up about one tenth of one percent of the district’s annual budget of $2.2 billion.
The Council’s report cited a recent study by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution estimating that the expenditure on standardized assessments by states across the country is about $1.7 billion annually – or about $34 per student – and said: “Although the number appears high, the report suggests that if these dollars were reinvested in classrooms or teacher raises, the student-teacher ratio would fall by only 0.1 student, and teacher salaries would increase by only $550 per teacher annually.”
3. Districts generally don’t track the costs of test preparation activities as distinct from other instructional time.
In the Philadelphia School District, for example, schools are supplied with materials to aid 5 things to know about the financial cost of testing | Philadelphia Public School Notebook: