Testing Industry Frays Under NCLB

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

"NO CHILD" TEST DEMANDS TAXING SYSTEM

Associated Press -- March 25, 2007
by Megan Reichgott

Chicago --To motivate juniors on last April's assessment exams, 
Springfield High School offered coveted lockers, parking spaces near the 
door and free prom tickets as incentives for good scores.

But the incentives at the central Illinois school went unclaimed until 
earlier this month, when Illinois finally published its 2006 test scores 
-- more than four months after they were due.

Critics pounced on Harcourt Assessment Inc., which lost most of its 
$44.5 million state contract over delays -- caused by everything from 
shipping problems to missing test pages and scoring errors -- that made 
Illinois the last state in the nation to release scores used to judge 
schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But experts say the problems are more widespread and are likely to get 
worse. A handful of companies create, print and score most of the tests 
in the U.S. and they're struggling with a workload that has exploded 
since President Bush signed the education reform package in 2002.

"The testing industry in the U.S. is buckling under the weight of NCLB 
demands," said Thomas Toch, co-director of Education Sector, a 
Washington-based think tank.

When Education Sector surveyed 23 states in 2006, it found that 35 
percent of testing offices in those states had experienced "significant" 
errors with scoring and 20 percent didn't get results "in a timely fashion."

Illinois saw more problems this month, when students took achievement 
tests that contained as many as 13 errors, officials said.

Illinois isn't the only state that's experienced difficulties:

--Oregon's Education Department complained that a computerized test was 
plagued by system problems. Test company Vantage Learning later 
terminated its contract with the state, claiming it was owed money, and 
the state sued the company for breach of contract. Now, thousands of 
students who haven't completed online exams will take them in May the 
old-fashioned way, using paper and pencil.

--Connecticut last year fined Harcourt $80,000 after a processing error 
caused wrong scores for 355 students in 2005. While that's a fraction of 
the state's 41,000 kids who took the test, state officials had to notify 
51, or nearly a third, of all districts that some of their students got 
the wrong scores. The problem came a year after the state canceled its 
contract with another company, CTB/McGraw-Hill, after scoring problems 
caused a five-month delay in reporting scores.

--The Texas Education Agency passed 4,160 10th-graders who initially 
failed the math section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills 
in 2003 after officials discovered a test question had more than one 
correct answer.

--Pearson Educational Measurement apologized last year after it reported 
more than 900,000 Michigan results weeks late. In 2003, previous vendor 
Measurement Inc. delivered 3,400 MEAP scores months late and nearly 
1,000 results went missing.

--Alabama education officials said a testing company mistakenly failed 
some schools while passing others that should have failed, due to 
scoring problems on the 2005 assessment test.

The number of students tested has risen sharply since the No Child Left 
Behind Act took effect. Illinois, for example, used to test only third, 
fifth and eight graders but now tests students in third through eighth 
grades.

To meet NCLB requirements, states administered 45 million reading and 
math exams during spring 2006. At the end of the 2007-2008 school year, 
they will give about 56 million tests because they must add a science 
exam at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

What's more, each state has its own test, and many want them customized, 
said Michael Hansen, chief executive officer of Harcourt Assessment, 
which no longer administers Illinois' tests but still is involved in 
developing and grading them.

"Not only (have) states wanted different content in terms of the tests, 
but they also have very many different requirements as to logistics, 
delivery, look and feel, color, how the questions are organized, 
horizontal, vertical ... you name it, it was on the table," Hansen said.

On top of that, experts say, are rigid NCLB-driven deadlines.

"That means March and April we are completely ... at peak capacity and 
so is every one of our competitors," Hansen said. "But also then when 
the test results come in, they (schools) need the test results back as 
soon as possible ... so the turnaround from the time that the test is 
taken, to (when) we need to report the results is extremely tight and 
it's getting tighter and tighter."

Others say the problems are exacerbated by little competition or regulation.

The NCLB testing industry is dominated by four companies: Harcourt of 
San Antonio,Texas; CTB/McGraw-Hill based in Monterey, Calif.; Pearson 
Educational Measurement of Iowa City, Iowa, and Riverside Publishing of 
Itasca, Ill.

"It's not entirely a monopoly, but it is an oligopoly, with very little 
regulation," said Walter Haney, professor at the Center for the Study of 
Testing Evaluation and Educational Policy at Boston College.

Both state education departments and testing companies are "overtaxed 
and bursting at the seams," said Becky Watts, former chief of staff at 
the Illinois State Board of Education.

From 2002 to 2008, states will spend between $1.9 billion and $5.3 
billion to develop, score and report NCLB-required tests, according to a 
report by the Government Accountability Office.

However, states spend less than a quarter of 1 percent of school revenue 
-- or $10 to $30 a student -- on testing programs, even though federal, 
state and local spending per pupil adds up to more than $8,000 a year, 
Toch said.

"That's not enough to produce high-quality tests in the tight timelines 
that NCLB requires. It's ludicrous," Toch said.

The U.S. Department of Education must be more active, Toch said.

"Instead, Secretary (Margaret) Spellings has largely washed her hands of 
this problem, said it's a state problem, which is a peculiar ... 
response because it's the federal government that has required the 
states to take these actions," Toch said.