October 1, 2000
The Absurdity of the Month Award for October
Awarded by Ken Goodman
This is the period of the pedagogy of the absurd in education in the
United States with each day producing new examples. Some of them are
funny; some outrageous; all are at least potentially tragic.
The award for October goes to National Computer Systems, the major
beneficiary of high stakes testing. If "high stakes are for tomatoes", I
guess we could call it the “golden tomatoes award.” High stakes tests
were a major reason for NCS to be valued at 2.5 billion dollars (yes
that’s a b) when it was acquired by Pearson PLC, the mutlinational
conglomerate in July of this year. Pearson already owns Addison Wesley,
Allyn & Bacon, Prentice Hall, Longman, and Scott, Foresman.
How big is the NCS stake in high stakes: By their own report (9/11/97)
"NCS is the nation’s largest commercial processor of student assessment
tests, providing total support for the large-volume, complex testing
requirements of over 40 states... In 1996, NCS processed 100 million
test sheets, scored over 20 million performance-assessment items, and
printed over 30,000 miles of evaluative reports. A highly experienced
staff supported by innovative processing technologies meets the program
requirements in a timely, efficient and cost effective manner.”(Think of
how these numbers have increased in four years! Around the world with
NCS!)
The sheer amount of money involved is an absurdity itself. But more
absurdity comes in the evidence that the NCS is not exactly meeting “the
program requirements in a timely, efficient and cost effective manner.”
In Arizona, where NCS has the contract for the high stakes AIMS test,
the company “will not produce reports on individual student scores from
last Spring’s AIMS test unless a new higher price is met. The scoring
reports were supposed to be released September 27 along with aggegate
scores”, says the Arizona Republic (9/17/00) Already caught in a
political uproar over high failures rates reported on AIMS last year,
the Arizona Department of Education won’t be able to tell high school
pupils how they did in time for them to get ready to retake the test.
The Arizona Republic also reports that in Minnesota, “...an NCS scoring
error on that state’s math test botched results for 47,000 students,
almost 8000 of whom were told they had failed when they hadn’t.” About
50 Minnesota high school seniors are suing NCS because they were wrongly
denied their diplomas.
NCS was fined $4 million dollars in Florida this year when it was nearly
a month late delivering reading and math scores. Now it is caught in the
midst of another absurdity as a result of the data it reported in
Florida. The scores were so strange the state education department
didn’t release them in June. They have just been sent to districts and
schools with this absurd comment: “We are uncertain what they mean.” It
seems 8th graders were at the 54th percentile in reading but in the
ninth grade they were at the 38th percentile. Tenth graders scored at
the 33rd percentile! Even Florida’s nespapers are finding it hard to
believe these scores mean anything useful.
While greedy NCS makes its absurd profits there is tragedy for teachers
and learners in all this. And it isn’t going to get better: Here’s what
Russ Gulloti, chairman, president and CEO of NCS says about its future
as part of Pearson:
The merger of NCS and Pearson plc is an outstanding strategic and
cultural fit. Both companies have a strong presence in the education
market, and the core products and skills of the two businesses are
remarkable complementary, but without direct overlap. The acquisition of
NCS by Pearson allows for the kind of presence needed for both of us to
continue our strong growth and maintain our market leadership
positions.” (July 31, 2000)
Kind of presence? Market leadership? Monopoly anyone?
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