Business-Managed Democracy

Business-Managed Education

Profit Seekers

The push for high stakes standardised testing has created many business opportunities, as government funding is channelled into tests and texts rather than teacher training and reducing class sizes. This has fed a massive industry in test-related materials in the US that reached $592 million in sales in 2003, and over $8 billion in textbook and related educational materials in the US alone in 2006.

In Australian standardised testing (NAPLAN) has also given rise to an industry "where tests are available along with guidance from publishers to make your NAPLAN results successful? This is a nice little earner capitalising and exploiting the anxiety of students and parents. Schools aid and abet this by opting to purchase these materials".

Vested Interests

The profits to be made from the testing industry ensure that apart from the general business support for testing there is a dedicated band of business lobbyists who have their own vested interests in pushing standardised testing. “At every hearing, every discussion, the big test publishers are always present with at least one lobbyist, sometimes more”.

Private companies are paid not only to produce the test and supply materials for test preparation but also to grade the tests. Given that by 2008 there will be some 17 tests required by NCLB for each school district each year as well as state tests and practice tests, this is a boom industry.

The NCLB has provided such a windfall of business that it has been dubbed the Testing Company Welfare Act. It provides for some $13 billion of Title 1 money (money previously earmarked for helping low income students) to be spent on NCLB initiatives “including $3.7 billion expected to go to businesses developing supplemental curriculum, $3.5 billion to professional development services, and $1 billion to tutoring and test preparation companies”.

The respected Literacy Research Association has recorded its concern that “representatives of multiple commercial entities that stand to profit enormously from selling curricula, instructional materials, assessments, and consultancies as the standards are rolled out” are authoring US curriculum standards.

Money to be Made from Testing – Some Figures

• 
  Reference: Karen Brandon, ‘Test-Prep Pressure Hits Grade Schools’, in Alfie Kohn and Patrick Shannon (eds) Education, Inc. Turning Learning into a Business, revised ed. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2002, p. 59.
  It costs a state in the US around $10 million just to have school performance evaluated – mainly on the basis of standardised tests – and published.
• 
  Reference: Eleanor Chute, ‘Back to School: Educcation Booms into a $850 Billion Enterprise’, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 30 August, 2006.
  The market for school assessment, tutoring, test preparation services and supplemental content supplies is worth $25 billion in the US.
• 
  Reference: June Kronholz, ‘Education Companies See Dollars in Bush School-Boost Law’, Wall Street Journal, 24 December, 2003, p. B1.
  Educational Testing Service (ETS) earned $75 million from designing tests for California, New Jersey and Puerto Rico in 2003. ETS has an $18,000 course that trains districts to judge how good their teachers are.
• 
  Reference: David Bacon, ‘Testing Companies Go for the Gold’, Rethinking Schools Online, vol 16, no 3, 2002.
  McGraw-Hill’s contract to supply tests to Kentucky in 2002 was worth $30 million.
• Harcourt Educational Measurement, which supplied a new NCLB-oriented test for ten states in 2003 was set to double its revenue in the first five years after introduction of NCLB.
• 
  Reference: June Kronholz, ‘Education Companies See Dollars in Bush School-Boost Law’, Wall Street Journal, 24 December, 2003, p. B1.
  Kaplan’s revenue had doubled by 2003 following introduction of NCLB. Kaplan offers a $3,000 half-day course to help teachers understand testing.
• 
  Reference: June Kronholz, ‘Education Companies See Dollars in Bush School-Boost Law’, Wall Street Journal, 24 December, 2003, p. B1.
  Princeton Review sells a web-based product, Homeroom which allows teachers to give students mini-tests and get immediate feedback on individual student weaknesses and exercises to help them improve their test scores. Homeroom costs $3,500 a school year and is already in 3,000 schools.

Drawbacks

Private test companies receive little government oversight: “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”.

Schools pay for commercial test-preparation materials which can divert funds from very needy schools without any proven results. For example, Professor Linda McNeil, co-director of the Rice Center for Education, describes a primarily Mexican-American school in Houston “that had no library, almost no lab equipment and a shortage of textbooks. Instead of addressing these basic educational needs, the administration spent $20,000 for commercial test-preparation books. Scores at the school failed to improve.”