Mega-publisher Pearson admitted that it released the wrong grades for 4,000 students in Virginia.
“Pearson issued a similar apology last spring for making mistakes in the scoring of admissions tests for gifted and talented programs in New York City public schools. Other scoring problems by Pearson in recent years caused delays in final test results in Florida and Minnesota.
“Pearson and state education officials said the problem in Virginia was not in the scoring but in how the scores were converted into proficiency levels: fail, pass/proficient or pass/advanced.”
Ah, those pesky cut score. Who sets them? What do they mean?
Why don’t we trust teachers to write their own tests and grade them so they can give timely help to students who need it?
The education-industrial complex errs again. With no accountability, no consequences for failure.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Guess Pearson is too big to be held accountable for ruining the lives of our young, their teachers, and their neighborhood public schools. Don’t ya love it when the yahoos yell accountability and mess up everyone from whom they take money?
If these tests were used meaningfully, they’d be given at the beginning of each school year to diagnose what students need to work on, never used punitively, and scored rapidly, since they wouldn’t need to fit into a bogus “rating” score. As a teacher, I liked to know what the students needed to work on and go from there. If these tests were formative rather than summative, they’d have an actualy application that made sense. As it is, they are a stab at “controlling” all schools to somehow “measure up” to a test that they aren’t able to prepare kids to take, so they have to spend a lot of time and money “taking a stab” at what “might” be on the test.
Is that asking tioo much?
Virginian parents should have their hands out with their tax bills as receipts or proof-of-purchase and just say to Pearson
“I want my money back!” . . . .
No credits or exchanges; just a full refund.
Can you imagine having your child think they did well, and then be told they didn’t? Or can you imagine having you child think they didn’t pass, and then find out that they did pass? NO child deserves the stress and stomach aches of this. And, yet, these corporate schmoes don’t blink an idea and use this “instrument” to mess with the lives of children and teachers. It is nothing short of SICKI.
Test are written and graded by teachers in order to give timely help to students. One tasty mouthful!
Lazer Goldberg agreed when he wrote, “Evaluative procedures inform the teacher about how adequate or inadequate her provisions for learning have been. The purpose is not to measure children because the purpose of education is not measurement, it is to teach.” Children and Science 1970
Pearson doesn’t provision but it does profit from the deliberate diminishment of an entire generation of students. There is motive behind their measurements.
I keep wondering when a Class Action lawsuit against these bozos is going to proceed. Meanwhile Pearson’s new corporate slogan should be “oh well . . .”
“My bad” – how come mistakes are acceptable when they’re on a large scale, repetitive, and effect thousands, and they’re paid for just one purpose – but on the local level, there are no excuses and teachers have to take up multiple roles?
I agree totally!
What an incredible and further insult to teachers. Teachers can’t be trusted, but Pearson, who has made many errors, is still in business selling and grading tests? My God what have we come to?
I believe we have been bought and sold a bill of goods at the same time.
Colleagues all over the country…do your local newspapers report these facts?
The LA Times either never reports on this kind of egregious error, or they bury it in a sentence on the obituary page.
Trust teachers to write and administer meaningful assessments? Silly idea. Where’s the profit and control in that?
I’m sure my masters in literacy education doesn’t qualify me to check to see if my kids can read well and adjust my instruction to meet their needs. Only an out-of-state corporation using some sort of computerized standardized test could do that effectively.
Context is important.
“The botched scorecards were for the Virginia Alternative Assessment Program, given to students with serious cognitive disabilities who are unable to take regular Standards of Learning tests.
The portfolio-style tests review student work that is compiled throughout the school year. Usually, the portfolios are evaluated on the local level, Pyle said. But this year, because the state is moving to new standards, Pearson was given the job of judging and scoring them.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/pearson-miscalculates-scorecards-for-more-than-4000-va-students/2013/08/13/5620cc42-042d-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
This is not excusing Pearson serious goof up.
This is one of many. A teacher who made this many mistakes with her students and their grades would be long gone. Accountability for the commoners only. They’re all about transparency, no excuses and accountability until it applies to them.
Thought Laura might want to see this. Polly
Beyond the fact that the tests were botched and teachers don’t know what’s on them, there is the fact that the tests have factually incorrect information on them or the questions are oversimplified to the point that the information is demonstrably false, or at least the World History tests have this problem. There is also no recourse for educators to take should they notice factual errors on the test, because by the time the test items are released and teachers are in a position to notice the errors, it is far, far too late. The students have already taken the test, been scored on them and moved on. Students can point out if they think that there is an error on the test while they are taking it, but as students have been trained only for this test and know very little actual history, this seems very unlikely to occur. Thus, we have a system in which errors creep in at every level of the process and teachers and students are being punished for this deeply flawed system.
Aren’t corporations people? Let’s give them a VAM score and fire them now! I sure hate wasting my tax money on them when my district in Nevada, Clark County, is still 200 teachers short. We could also use more police and firefighters instead of tests from Pearson.
Now Pearson is actually profiting from Alternate Assessment testing? So sad. I am afraid that big business is winning . isnt there anyone out there who reports on these outrageous things?
Pearson has a pattern of poor performance nationwide, stretching back for more than a decade. For example,
A. In 2002, a computer glitch caused malfunctions in some online math tests and Pearson incorrectly failed nearly 8,000 Minnesota students on a test that was required for high school graduation. Pearson agreed to pay up to $7 million in damages for that problem.
B. In 2007, a Minnesota online statewide math test was shut down after the program malfunctioned for 25% of the districts that were using it.
C. In 2010, the results from online science tests taken by 180,000 students in grades 5 to 8 were delayed due to scoring errors.
D. In 2005, in Virginia computerized tests were misgraded.
E. In 2009-2010, Wyoming’s new computer testing program failed and the state demanded that Pearson repay $9.5 million for “complete default of the contract.”
F. In 2011, according to the Tampa Bay Times, students taking Florida’s new computerized algebra final exam could not submit finished tests because Pearson’s servers were down.
For more details see
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/enough-is-enough-pearson-_b_3146434.html
These online testing problems are not confined to Pearson. There has been a concerning pattern across states over a number of years with several testing companies in addition to Pearson. See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/04/severe-technical-problems-raise-concerns-over-online-tests/
Wow. It seems like Pearson should receive an “Ineffective” rating. No renewal of contract.
Don’t forget that Pineapple question!!