Bush's Domestic Policy: NCLB

[Moses]

From the 3rd Debate:

Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?

    Bush: I'd say, Bob, I've got policies to continue to grow our economy and create the jobs of the 21st century. And here's some help for you to go get an education. Here's some help for you to go to a community college.

 We've expanded trade adjustment assistance. We want to help pay for you to gain the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.

    You know, there's a lot of talk about how to keep the economy growing. We talk about fiscal matters. But perhaps the best way to keep jobs here in America and to keep this economy growing is to make sure our education system works.

    I went to Washington to solve problems. And I saw a problem in the public education system in America. They were just shuffling too many kids through the system, year after year, grade after grade, without learning the basics.

    And so we said: Let's raise the standards. We're spending more money, but let's raise the standards and measure early and solve problems now, before it's too late.

    No, education is how to help the person who's lost a job. Education is how to make sure we've got a workforce that's productive and competitive.

    Got four more years, I've got more to do to continue to raise standards, to continue to reward teachers and school districts that are working, to emphasize math and science in the classrooms, to continue to expand Pell Grants to make sure that people have an opportunity to start their career with a college diploma.

    And so the person you talked to, I say, here's some help, here's some trade adjustment assistance money for you to go a community college in your neighborhood, a community college which is providing the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. And that's what I would say to that person.

Bush: Actually, Mitch McConnell had a minimum-wage plan that I supported that would have increased the minimum wage.

    But let me talk about what's really important for the worker you're referring to. And that's to make sure the education system works. It's to make sure we raise standards.

    Listen, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it. The No Child Left Behind Act says, "We'll raise standards. We'll increase federal spending. But in return for extra spending, we now want people to measure - states and local jurisdictions to measure to show us whether or not a child can read or write or add and subtract."

    You cannot solve a problem unless you diagnose the problem. And we weren't diagnosing problems. And therefore just kids were being shuffled through the school.

    And guess who would get shuffled through? Children whose parents wouldn't speak English as a first language just move through.

    Many inner-city kids just move through. We've stopped that practice now by measuring early. And when we find a problem, we spend extra money to correct it.

    I remember a lady in Houston, Texas, told me, "Reading is the new civil right," and she's right. In order to make sure people have jobs for the 21st century, we've got to get it right in the education system, and we're beginning to close a minority achievement gap now.

    You see, we'll never be able to compete in the 21st century unless we have an education system that doesn't quit on children, an education system that raises standards, an education that makes sure there's excellence in every classroom.

Bush: Two things. One, he clearly has a litmus test for his judges, which I disagree with.

    And secondly, only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.

    We've increased funds. But more importantly, we've reformed the system to make sure that we solve problems early, before they're too late.

    He talked about the unemployed. Absolutely we've got to make sure they get educated.

    He talked about children whose parents don't speak English as a first language? Absolutely we've got to make sure they get educated.

    And that's what the No Child Left Behind Act does.

Bush: Well, first of all, it is just not true that I haven't met with the Black Congressional Caucus. I met with the Black Congressional Caucus at the White House.

    And secondly, like my opponent, I don't agree we ought to have quotas. I agree, we shouldn't have quotas.

    But we ought to have an aggressive effort to make sure people are educated, to make sure when they get out of high school there's Pell Grants available for them, which is what we've done. We've expanded Pell Grants by a million students.

    Do you realize today in America, we spend $73 billion to help 10 million low- and middle-income families better afford college?

    That's the access I believe is necessary, is to make sure every child learns to read, write, add and subtract early, to be able to build on that education by going to college so they can start their careers with a college diploma.

    I believe the best way to help our small businesses is not only through small-business loans, which we have increased since I've been the president of the United States, but to unbundle government contracts so people have a chance to be able to bid and receive a contract to help get their business going.

    Minority ownership of businesses are up, because we created an environment for the entrepreneurial spirit to be strong.

    I believe part of a hopeful society is one in which somebody owns something. Today in America more minorities own a home than ever before. And that's hopeful, and that's positive.

[calabi-yau]

Too bad 'Bob' did not (could not ?) say:

"With all due respect Mr. President, my question is not about education but about the state of the job market within the current American economy. Could you please answer the question, sir ?"


But maybe education and economy are one and the same in Bush's deranged mind. At least, both words start with an 'e' .

[Moses]

NCLB is very unpopular. And yet the lawmakers are in favor of it, and plan to do no more than tweak it. That is because lawmakers disdain their constituents in favor of special interest groups, and favor totalitarianism-- and that is true of both political parties. They just differ on the shape totalitarianism should take: funded totalitarianism, or unfunded totalitarianism:

No Child Left Behind Presents Set of Impossible Standards

Ohanian Comment:Hat's off to Tom Jobst, who isn't taking the atrocities lying down. We can only hope other educators stop toadying up to power and lend their voices to protest and resistance.

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Of all the students she’s taught to speak English, Veronica Scheri is most proud of 9-year-old Jesus Corona. Jesus came to Northwest School two years ago speaking no English but now reads as well as any fourth-grader. “He’s my pride and joy,” said Scheri, a bilingual aide. “He’s done beautifully, but it took him two years.”

Unfortunately, Jesus and other Spanish-speaking children are causing La Salle schools to fail — according to the federal government, that is.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, American schools must improve on reading and math scores every year or risk losing Title I funds or worse. NCLB looks not only at a student body but also at “subgroups,” comprised of as few as 40 students, whose performance can drag down a school. There are no exemptions for special education or ESL students, who generally don’t fare well on the standardized tests used to gauge NCLB compliance.

“You know they’re not going to do well, and they know it, too,” Scheri said. “Soon their self-esteem is pushed down — and they need to feel good about themselves.”

What comes out of Springfield and Capitol Hill has far reaching consequences for children’s education in the Illinois Valley. The decisions made by senators and representatives can breathe life into or cripple school districts.

When children don’t test well, NCLB ensures that everybody loses. Schools with even one under-performing subgroup first get a warning. Funding is jeopardized, and, over time, the state can seize control of a district.

Tom Jobst expects that he and his staff at Ottawa Township High School could all be fired by 2008.

Within four years, Ottawa will be so irreversibly in violation of NCLB that they’ll have merited the worst sanction: restructuring and designation as a charter school.

“The whole thing is a sham,” said Jobst, Ottawa High’s superintendent. “It’s about breaking up local control of schools. Congress couldn’t get vouchers, so they settled for this.”

Not all of his peers share the belief that Congress designed NCLB to privatize “failing schools.” All those interviewed agreed: It’s a matter of a time before they follow Ottawa’s lead and fall short of the act’s lofty goals.

NCLB requires that 95 percent of students meet basic math and reading standards and another 40 percent exceed them. Another 88 percent of students must meet attendance standards. Schools must make “adequate yearly progress” toward reaching the goal of 100 percent compliance.

Jobst said national standards are unrealistic because children don’t learn at the same pace, and unfair because single-day testing decides whether they pass.

“What if we say to Sammy Sosa, ‘We will base your contract on how you bat on July 5,’ and what if he has a bad game that day?” Jobst said. “The problem is the system is based on a single, high-stakes test, and it does not even test what we are teaching.”

Waltham superintendent Kristen School said NCLB doesn’t even gauge progress within a particular group.

Suppose third-graders do well in 2004. Whether a school makes adequate yearly progress in 2005 depends not on how those same children do in the fourth grade, but how the incoming third-graders do.

“Every year you’re giving this test, you’re testing a different group of kids,” School said. “It’s not apples-to-apples.”

Former La Salle elementary superintendent Al Humpage said he believes in accountability, but said Congress devised NCLB to apply business principles to education, linking test scores to sanctions as a means of punishing poor performance.

Uniform standards might work for producing lumber or wristhingyches, Humpage said, but manufacturers have the luxury of sending defective materials back to the vendor.

“A public school has to accept every child that comes through the door, no matter what the defects,” he said. “We’re not able to say, ‘Sorry, you don’t fit our criteria.’

“The business model does not work in the real world,” he said. “Children are not widgets.”

Jobst sees two ways out: turn down Title I money and avoid NCLB requirements altogether, or sue the federal government to reverse the act.

Jobst has considered spurning $80,000 in Title I money despite a tight budget.

Filing a lawsuit also is an attractive option, but Jobst hopes that other schools would join in any litigation.

With an election to win in 2004, lawmakers were unwilling to correct flaws in NCLB. Once George W. Bush was re-elected, lawmakers were free to make changes.

U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Peoria), a former teacher whose district includes Spring Valley, said he plans to seek more funding.

Most school districts would welcome that. Princeton superintendent James Whitmore said the district only receives 4.9 percent of its funding from the federal government. Princeton spends $6,800 a year to educate a child, but just $400 comes from Washington.

“Our test scores are continually above state averages,” he said, “but the federal government only gives us $419,000 a year.”

LaHood also plans to re-evaluate the 100-percent goals that schools eventually would be held to.

“This is a very unrealistic standard for students,” LaHood said. “It certainly can’t be met by special education students, special needs students and by students who, through no fault of their own, miss a lot of school.”

U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) whose district includes La Salle County and most of Bureau County, identified two areas for altering NCLB.

First, Weller would consider amending teacher qualifications to let people continue teaching even if they don’t hold a bachelor’s degree in a particular subject.

Weller also believes NCLB should allow students to pursue career and technical education programs even if their test scores are bad, provided they receive further instruction in those subjects.

Don’t look for NCLB to be repealed, however. Accountability remains a buzzword in the Bush administration and any action is unlikely to extend beyond tweaking NCLB. Plus, legislators reject the notion that they set up schools to fail.

“I don’t buy that argument,” LaHood said. “That’s pretty far afield of what the intentions were.”

Voters may find that NCLB is a paper tiger, however. Though students would have the right to transfer out of “failing” schools, nothing in NCLB requires “successful” schools to take them.

Peru has a comparatively strong tax base and might attract transfers, but superintendent James Bagley said Peru would reject most, if not all, transfer requests.

“We’ve gone to referendum twice now for crowded school conditions,” Bagley said. “We just don’t think we have the luxury of taking students from other school districts.”

And what about state takeovers? Would the state seize Ottawa High when it comes down to it?

“You and I both know it’s not going to happen,” said Humpage, shaking his head. “The state doesn’t have the manpower or the resources to take over the schools.

“Unfortunately,” he added, “they can tar and feather you in public long before those sanctions take place.”

---

— Tom Collins and Sean Thomas
(Illinois) News Tribune
2004-12-28

[Moses]

Subgroups Pull PLV Schools Into 'Not Met' NCLB Categories

Ohanian Comment: How long before the backlash against "subgroups" raises its ugly head?

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Two subgroups in the Papillion-La Vista School District did not meet the annual proficiency standard set by the No Child Left Behind law. The Adequate Yearly Progress report, which was released Dec. 20, 2004, indicates students in special education categories in elementary middle and high school levels as well as free/reduced lunch students did not meet the standard.

By 2013, 100 percent of all students should be proficient in all areas. This year's proficiency standards vary depending on grade level and subject matter, but range from 58 percent for eighth-grade math scores to 66 percent for 11th-grade reading scores.

The difficulty with comparing school districts under the No Child Left Behind law is that each state is left to determine what material is tested and what kind of test is given, said Jef Johnston, assistant superintendent of curriculum. In Nebraska, each district determines what material is tested and each district tests differently.

The Papillion-La Vista School District did not meet the proficiency standard in elementary special education in math, middle school special education reading and math, high school special education math and reading and students eligible for free/reduced lunch in reading.

"We try to challenge our students," Johnston said. "We are trying to do the right thing by testing what we teach."

Nebraska is the only state that allows each district to create their test. Teachers and administrators, Johnston said, can't make sense of the tests unless the same test is given to every student.

"It is impossible to compare districts unless you give the same test to every student," Johnston said. "It is also impossible to compare states because they don't give the same tests."

Every school in the Papillion-La Vista School District has a School Improvement Plan, and those are based on performance and help to figure out what works and what doesn't in each building, Johnston said. The data from the district assessments is used to modify the School Improvement Plan. The data from the district assessment is the same data used for the State Report Card and for the AYP.

Normally the AYP data is included in the State Report Card, but the release of that data was delayed this year.

"In the school district we set a high standard and have tough assessments to push our students to do better," Johnston said. "Eventually all schools will be in the 'not met' category. We think that every child should improve every year."

All 16 Papillion-La Vista schools are making progress, Johnston said, and as a whole, all the schools in the Papillion-La Vista School District met federal standards in performance. The subgroups are where the district didn't score as well.

"A great example of our growth is in writing," Johnston said. "Both on our own test and the state test we are seeing growth. Three years ago we were under the state average and now we are among the highest in the state and in the metro area. It has much to do with each school and having a plan for improvement in writing."

If more than 30 students are in the ethnic, free/reduced lunch or English Language Learners subgroup that subgroup will be reported. If more than 45 students are in the special education subgroup then that group will be reported. However, if fewer students are in those subgroups, the scores will not be reported and the school cannot be reported as either on or off the school improvement list.

"We look at those numbers anyway," Johnston said. "We look at all groups of students and try to build a plan for everyone because we think that's important."

---

— Valerie Cutshall
Papillion Times
2004-12-29
www.papilliontimes.com/index.php?u_pg=779&u_sid=1296306

[Moses]

How many full time teachers could be hired wih $241K?

Stay informed with Marylanders Against High Stakes Testing www.geocities.com/stophsa

From the Washington Post - Sat. Jan 8.

Administration Paid Commentator

By Howard Kurtz

The Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams $241,000 to help promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on the air, an arrangement that Williams acknowledged yesterday involved "bad judgment" on his part.

In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column.

Congressional Democrats immediately accused the administration of trying to bribe journalists. Williams's newspaper syndicate, Tribune Media Services, yesterday canceled his column. And one television network dropped his program pending an investigation.

Williams, one of the most prominent black conservatives in the media, said he understands "why some people think it's unethical." Asked if people would be justified in thinking he sold his opinions to the government for cash, he said: "It's fair for someone to make that assessment."

The Education Department contract, first reported yesterday by USA Today, increased criticism of the administration's aggressive approach to news management. The department already has paid Ketchum $700,000 to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they report on No Child Left Behind, and to produce a video release on the law that was used by some television stations as if it were real news. Other government agencies -- including the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- also have distributed such prepackaged videos, a practice that congressional auditors have described as illegal in some cases.

The Williams incident follows a series of other media embarrassments in the past 18 months involving such high-profile outlets as the New York Times, USA Today and CBS News that have further eroded the credibility of the news business.

Rep. George Miller (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House education committee, said the Williams contract "is propaganda, it's unethical, it's dangerous and it's illegal" and called it "worthy of Pravda." Committee Chairman John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to join Miller in requesting an inspector general's investigation, a spokesman said.

Miller cited two Government Accountability Office opinions that the administration violated federal law with video news releases. In May, the GAO criticized the Department of Health and Human Services for using the technique to promote Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. This week, it criticized the Office of National Drug Control Policy for distributing similar reports with a contractor posing as a journalist, including a "suggested live intro" for anchors to read.

Miller, joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats, asked Bush in a letter to put an end to "covert propaganda."

In a separate letter, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked the president to recover the money paid to Williams. "We believe that the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy," they wrote.

The Education Department defended the contract, which Paige knew about in advance, as a minority outreach effort through Williams's syndicated program, "The Right Side."

"Our contract was for advertising," said department spokesman John Gibbons. "Our intent was to reach out to minority audiences. Armstrong went out and talked about it -- we didn't have anything to do with that."

But the contract also required Williams to "utilize his long term working relationship" with black producers to "encourage" them to "periodically address the No Child Left Behind Act."

"Our objective was to put out basic information to audiences. . . . We certainly had no intention to do it in an underhanded way," Gibbons added. He said the department stopped putting out video news releases after the first GAO report and has no other contract involving payments to journalists. Ketchum executives declined to comment.

Alex Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein media center, said he is "disgusted" by what he called "the worst kind of fakery and flackery" on Williams's part. "It's propaganda masquerading as news, paid by government, truly a recipe from hell," he said. "It would make any thinking person hearing any pundit speak want to say, 'Okay, how much did they pay you to say that?' " Jones said the contract also shows that "the Bush administration neither understands nor respects the idea of an independent media."

Williams, a onetime aide to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is the founder and chief executive of the Graham Williams Group, a public relations firm on Capitol Hill, and, according to his Web site, a "multi-media wonder." He frequently discusses politics on CNN and other networks and on his own radio show. "The Right Side," owned and hosted by Williams, is carried by the Lynchburg, Va.-based Liberty Channel, which is affiliated with Jerry Falwell; Sky Angel satellite network, a Christian organization; and Sinclair Broadcast Group.

His other show, "On Point" -- on which Williams interviewed Paige last year, as well as Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- is carried by TV One, a Silver Spring-based network aimed at African Americans. Williams said he had disclosed his contract to TV One, but chief executive Johnathon Rodgers said the network knew nothing about it and has taken the show off the air while it investigates.

"As a former journalist, I'm bothered by things like this -- people being in the pay of various political groups and pressing their messages without a declaration," Rodgers said.

As a longtime supporter of No Child Left Behind, Williams said, he was receptive in the summer of 2003 when Education Department and Ketchum officials approached him about buying an ad on "The Right Side" to promote the law. Although he "agonized" over the first of two six-month contracts, he said, the law "is something I believe in."

Williams said he aired the spot twice on each "Right Side" broadcast and disclosed the contract on that show. He said he successfully urged another black television personality, Steve Harvey, to twice interview Paige.

Williams has written several newspaper columns defending administration education policy. Last January, he wrote that the No Child Left Behind law "has provided more funds to poor children than any other education bill in this country's history." In May, he wrote that the law "holds entire schools accountable."

Chicago-based Tribune Media Services dropped Williams's column yesterday, saying he had violated his contract. "Accepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest," prompting readers to ask whether his opinions "have been purchased by a third party," a company statement said.

In October, Williams praised the law on CNN. He "didn't disclose to us that he was a paid spokesman, and we believe he should have," said CNN spokesman Matthew Furman. "We will obviously take that into serious consideration before booking Armstrong in the future."

Williams said he will not accept such government contracts again.

Spokesmen for other federal agencies acknowledged yesterday that they also have distributed prepackaged video news releases. Last March, the Census Bureau sent out a video release to trumpet Women's History Month. "Women are breaking the gender barrier in one field after another," contractor Karen Ryan, who produced and narrated the videos, said, citing a Census Bureau analysis. The story included comments by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and ended with the sign-off: "I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

Census officials said yesterday that they no longer distribute tapes that could be broadcast as complete news stories.

As recently as October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shipped a video package on the flu vaccine that mimics a real news report. Spokesman Tom Skinner said he expects broadcasters to use the information as components of their own stories.

Staff writer Ceci Connolly contributed to this report.

[Moses]

KEEPING PUBLIC SCHOOLS PUBLIC
by Barbara Miner
Testing Companies Mine for Gold
From Rethinking Schools online - Winter 2004/2005

www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/19_02/test192.shtml

There's gold in them there tests.

Thanks to the testing mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, private companies are mining the testing field with all the power their accountants, test-makers, and marketers can muster.

States are likely to spend $1.9 billion to $5.3 billion between 2002 and 2008 to implement NCLB-mandated tests, according to the non-partisan Government Accounting Office (GAO).

Those GAO figures cover just the direct costs of six years of developing, scoring, and reporting the tests-which is performed under contract with private companies. Add in indirect costs, such as the amount of classroom teacher time devoted to coordinating and giving the tests and, increasingly, preparing students with ongoing "practice" tests, and testing experts say the figure could be 8 to 15 times higher.

The amount of education money devoted to standardized tests is only part of the problem. Invariably, the private testing companies that control standardized testing operate behind closed doors with little to no public accountability. They function as subsections of multinational conglomerates that view the U.S. testing industry as just one tentacle of publishing and entertainment empires that span the globe.

"There's very little oversight of the testing industry," notes Walt Haney, an education professor at Boston College and a senior researcher at its National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy (NBETPP). "In fact, there is more public oversight of the pet industry and the food we feed our dogs than there is for the quality of tests we make our kids take."

Where's the Outcry?

There has been little public outcry over the fact that private, multinational companies operating beyond public oversight are determining which students, schools, and districts in the United States are deemed "failures" and which are deemed "successes." Given the secrecy that shrouds testing company operations, information is negligible. What the public doesn't know, the public doesn't complain about.

Critics of standardized testing also point to a third problem beyond the amount of money and the secrecy. That's the problem of missed opportunity. There's little doubt that the Bush administration's obsession with standardized tests as the sole determinant of school success has undermined reforms that focus on teaching children to think and to do more than fill in circles on test forms.

"The amount of money spent on standardized testing is not the real problem," notes Monty Neill, executive director of the Boston-based group FairTest. "The real problem is how it distorts teaching and learning."

The Testing Explosion

NCLB, introduced two days after George W. Bush took office and passed a year later, instituted an unprecedented level of federal mandates for testing public school students. The mandates built on bipartisan support for a corporate-influenced agenda of increased standardized testing. But NCLB carried that agenda to new levels, both with the number of tests and the harsh sanctions for those schools not meeting predetermined levels of test progress.

NCLB requires annual testing of students in third through eighth grades in mathematics and reading or language arts, and testing once in high school. Beginning in 2007-08, states will also be required to give tests in science at least once in elementary, middle, and high school. All told, there will be 17 NCLB tests each year for school districts. This translates into unfathomable amounts of school time devoted to standardized testing and teaching to those tests. It also creates untold business opportunities for the companies that produce the tests. (If you add in district- and state-mandated tests on top of NCLB requirements, and the growing number of "practice" tests given to students so they will do well on the "real" tests, the number of tests schools must administer skyrockets.)

Shrouded in Secrecy

Ironically, although Bush has used the rhetoric of accountability to justify NCLB, the finances of the testing companies are almost impossible to uncover, the tests themselves are generally not made public, and mistakes in the tests often come to light only when angry parents, students, or school administrators threaten to sue over mistakes in scoring. (See sidebar.)

While the public knows little of the testing companies, lobbyists have ensured that legislators are well aware of those corporate interests. Following Bush's first election and his unveiling of NCLB, testing company representatives descended on Congress to push for the type of standardized testing that Bush had made so popular in Texas.

"I've been lobbying on education issues since 1982, but the test publishers have been active at a level I've never seen before," Bruce Hunter of the American Association of School Administrators said at the time. "At every hearing, every discussion, the big test publishers are always present with at least one lobbyist, sometimes more."

And of course, there are the personal connections between the Bush Administration and the testing industry. A January 2002 article in The Nation points out that the Bush administration has a particularly "cozy relationship" with the testing company run by McGraw-Hill. The heart of this relationship, the article notes, "lies the three-generation social mingling between the McGraw and Bush families. The McGraws are old Bush friends, dating back to the 1930s."

In fact, on the first day he assumed his job at the White House, Bush invited Harold McGraw III into his office, according to The Nation .

The Testing Companies

Three companies have traditionally dominated the market for developing tests: Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, and Riverside Publishing. All are part of larger conglomerates, and their financial data generally are not reported separately from the controlling corporation.

A fourth, little-known company, Pearson Educational Measurement out of Iowa City, Iowa, has significantly increased its market share in recent years. According to the Dec. 1, 2004 Education Week , Pearson has for now overtaken Riverside as the third main testing company.

With the testing frenzy engendered by NCLB, the testing industry is going through a shake-up and newer companies are competing for state contracts. Some of the newer players: Measured Progress out of Dover, N.H., Data Recognition out of Minnesota, and Educational Testing Service based in Princeton, N.J.

"It's a very competitive landscape right now, and I'd say it's undergoing a fair amount of change," Jeff Galt, president and CEO of Harcourt told Education Week .

According to the Education Week survey, CTB/McGraw Hill currently dominates the market, with contracts in 23 states. Harcourt Assessment has contracts in 18 states, Pearson in 13, and Riverside in 12. The survey does not indicate the dollar amounts of the contracts or the number of students tested.

As with any business, the testing companies are driven by the need to make profits, not to improve education. They will do what the market requiresthem to do-nothing more, nothing less.

"These companies are really only interested in making money, and under NCLB they will make more money, while essentially remaining unaccountable," notes Neill of FairTest. "In other words, you keep the pain public and you privatize the profits."

[Moses]

Following is a brief summary of the major companies.

Harcourt Assessment
Harcourt publishes the Stanford Achievement Test series such as the SAT-9 (not to be confused with the SAT college entrance test). In 2002, more than 15 million students took the SAT-9, according to a special on "Frontline," the PBS program.

The company is based in San Antonio, Texas, and employs more than 1,200 people at its headquarters. Among its other products are clinical tests, such as the Wechsler "intelligence" tests. It is affiliated with the Harcourt book publishing companies, which range from Harcourt School, publishers of kindergarten materials; to Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, publishers of middle- and high-school materials; to Harcourt Trade Publishers, which publishes novels.

But that's only the tip of the conglomerate iceberg. All of these endeavors are part of Reed Elsevier, a London-based publisher that has a variety of separate legal entities, subsidiaries, associates, and joint ventures. Reed Elsevier is also known for its legal products such as LexisNexis, medical and science publications, and more than 130 business-to-business publications, ranging from the entertainment industry magazine Variety to Luxury Home Builder to Soho Today .

In 2001, Reed Elsevier had $5.6 billion in sales, according to "Frontline."

CTB/McGraw-Hill

CTB/McGraw-Hill is best known for its TerraNova tests, especially its Terra-Nova CTBS tests for grades one to 12, and its California Achievement Tests (CAT). The company currently leads the testing industry in terms of number of state contracts, and says that it serves more than 15 million students in 8,500 school districts in all 50 states. (Some contracts are with districts, not with states.) Like Harcourt, the company is part of a larger conglomerate; its parent company is McGraw-Hill, based in New York. Among the general public, McGraw-Hill is better known for enterprises such as Business Week magazine and Standard & Poor's, the financial and investment analysis company. It also owns four television stations. Overall, it has 280 offices in 40 countries.

For the nine months ending on September 30, McGraw-Hill had revenues of $3.84 billion with net profits of $566 million, according to Reuters.

If these numbers aren't enough to make you realize that the testing business is big business, consider the pay for McGraw-Hill president and CEO, Harold McGraw: $3.14 million in 2003.

Like many companies, CTB/Mc-Graw-Hill realizes that developing and selling the tests is only the beginning of the testing goldmine. These tests also need to be scored and reported, and then districts have to figure out how to store and evaluate data over several years in order to prove they have made the "Adequate Yearly Progress" that NCLB requires. Hence, there is an explosion in scoring, reporting, and database services as well.

In June, CTB/McGraw-Hill acquired TurnLeaf Solutions, "a national provider of customized online reporting and data analysis."

Pearson Educational Measurement
Pearson was previously seen as a niche player emphasizing data processing and scoring of tests. In 1968, for example, it began scoring test items for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP.)

With NCLB, Pearson has begun to develop a range of services that also includes test development. Pearson touts its ability to quickly turn around score reports as one of its advantages. According to Education Week , in Texas the company turns around results for some high-stakes tests in five to seven days.

Riverside Publishing
Riverside, based near Chicago in Itasca, Ill., is best known for its Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). Approximately four to five million students in eight states took the ITBS in 2001, according to "Frontline."

Riverside also publishes a variety of reading assessments designed to meet the "Reading First" phonics-oriented mandates of NCLB, which will provide federal dollars only for specific reading programs. Among the materials being promoted by Riverside are the Gates MacGinitie Reading Tests and the Basic Early Assessment of Reading (BEAR, with a silly-looking bear as the trademarked product icon).

Riverside has one of the most-well-known corporate parents: Houghton Mifflin Company, which is owned by HM Publishing Corp., which is owned by a consortium of private investment firms comprised of Thomas H. Lee Partners, Bain Capital, and funds managed by the Blackstone Group. Company press releases say Houghton Mifflin has more than $1 billion in sales annually.

Houghton Mifflin is also venturing into the database field. In December 2003 it bought Edusoft, a San Francisco-based company that provides web- and computer-based tests-and databases to store test results. Among its marketing promises: Edusoft can help classroom teachers develop "mini tests" that will gauge how close students are to passing the state tests. Edusoft's website says that more than 300 districts are currently using its services to comply with NCLB and that the Edusoft data warehouse currently stores more than 100 million student scores across more than 500,000 assessments.

Not to Be Forgotten . . .
Given the NCLB-driven explosion in standardized testing, smaller companies are also trying to increase their market share. One of the most successful has been the nonprofit Educational Testing Service, best known for the SAT college-entrance exam and its Advanced Placement program. In 2003, for example, ETS flexed its power and won a three-year, $175 million contract to oversee California's testing.

There are also companies that hope to make their money on scoring the tests. The federal GAO report on state spending on NCLB assessments from 2002-08, for example, used $5.3 billion as a high-end figure for tests that included essay or open-ended questions. If only multiple-choice questions are used on a test, costs could fall to $1.9 billion.

The reason is not so much in the tests as in the scoring, administering, and reporting. The GAO report, for instance, notes that in Colorado, developing the tests accounts for only 11 percent of the expenditures for the state test, with the remaining 89 percent going for test administration, scoring and reporting.

Open-ended and essay questions-which require more analytical skills than multiple-choice questions and which are considered educationally more sophisticated and worthwhile-cost far more to score. In Massachusetts, which the GAO says uses more open-ended questions in its tests, the cost was about $7 to score each test in 2002. In Virginia and North Carolina, which used mostly multiple-choice tests, the cost was less than $1 per test.

Given the financial crisis facing most state education budgets, and the consistent complaints that NCLB does not provide enough federal money to cover test costs, it's not outlandish to predict that financial pressures may force states to adopt dumbed-down multiple-choice tests emphasizing rote memorization and regurgitation of disconnected bits of information.

Which, of course, the testing companies will be happy to provide.

Barbara Miner ([e-mail]) is a freelance writer and former managing editor of Rethinking Schools.

Winter 2004/2005

[Moses]

 <br>http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v13n6/

Full study available in PDF format at epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v13n6/v13n6.pdf
 <br>
The Relationship of High School Graduation Exams to
Graduation Rates and SAT Scores

Gregory J. Marchant
Sharon E. Paulson
Ball State University

Citation:Marchant, G. J. & Paulson, S. E. (2005, January 21). The relationship of high school graduation exams to graduation rates and SAT scores. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13(6). Retrieved [date] from epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v13n6/.


This article was accepted by the previous Editor, Gene V Glass (1993-2004).
 <br>Abstract
The current study examined the effect of high school graduation exams on states’ graduation rates, states’ aggregated SAT scores, and individual students’ SAT scores. Three data sources were used: One source identified states requiring a standardized test for graduation; the NCES provided state aggregated data on graduation rates for the class of 2002; and the College Board provided its 2001 SAT database for all test-takers. After controlling for students’ demographic characteristics (e.g., race, family education and income, GPA and class rank), regression analyses revealed that states requiring graduation exams had lower graduation rates and lower SAT scores. Individually, students from states requiring a graduation exam performed more poorly on the SAT than did students from states not requiring an exam. The impact of high stakes tests’ on students’ motivation to stay in school and on the teaching of critical thinking skills (tested by the SAT) are discussed.
 <br> <br> <br> <br>Getting a diploma might get harder
Thousands more likely to fail graduation test if higher scores required, educators concede.
 <br>From Indystar.com www.indystar.com/articles/7/210628-3337-009.html
 <br>
By Staci Hupp
[e-mail]
January 19, 2005
 <br>
A high school diploma could be out of reach for more students this year after education leaders Tuesday recommended tougher passing scores on the state's mandatory graduation test.

Indiana Education Roundtable members acknowledged raising academic standards would mean thousands more students likely will fail that exam, the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus.

About 50,000 sophomores took the tests in math and English in September; based on the new standards, about one-third of them would fail.

That likely means fewer students will graduate and more schools will fail to meet federal benchmarks for improvement.

Gov. Mitch Daniels and other members of the roundtable praised the action as a bold and necessary move, despite critics' predictions that special education students and immigrant children will suffer.

"It's criminal to resign oneself to the notion that kids or certain kids can't achieve great things," said Daniels, who greeted the panel but said little during the hourlong meeting.

"If you set high standards and expectations, it's amazing what kids and teachers can do. The world is moving today. For our kids to realize their life potential, they're going to have to do more than their parents did."

The passing scores will change for the first time in eight years, to tie in with a more difficult graduation qualifying exam. The test was revamped last fall to match Indiana's revised blueprint for what students should know before they leave school.

The recommendation for passing the English exam is now 551, and the test has a scoring range from 100 to 820. The math score would be 586, and the test range is 100 to 920.

Education experts anticipated a debate Tuesday among the 33 educators, state lawmakers and business leaders on the roundtable. But members quickly and unanimously backed the state Education Department's proposal, which estimates that 32 percent of last fall's test-takers would fail on reading, and 36 percent would fail on math.

In the 2003-04 school year, 31 percent failed reading and 33 percent failed math on a different version of the graduation qualifying exam.

After Tuesday's decision, teachers and parents debated the implications.

"These rules are telling those students who are struggling that they may as well drop out of school because you are not going to get a diploma," said Mary Hunley, whose epileptic, learning-disabled son has trouble with algebra at Southport High School. "As far as my son goes, I will fight tooth and nail next year for him to receive a diploma. He has worked too hard not to."

Tuesday's data did not consider special education students learning English as a second language or other groups.

Education leaders emphasized that the failure rates aren't exact because the 10th-grade tests have not been graded.

The passing scores will be subject to a consultant's review [WHO?!] and approval from the State Board of Education before they're set in stone.

No timeline was set Tuesday, but this year's scores are due out by early March.

Call Star reporter Staci Hupp at [phone].

[Moses]